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Inside: The Ultimate OS/2 Game

The Independent Guide to OS/2 Computing Issue Six / $4.50

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CONTENTS

FEATURES

THE OS/2 2.0 DOS ENVIRONMENT PART III

Les Bell

ON THE EVE OF INSTALLATION

Bill Zinsmeyer

OS/2 + MIS

Gary Murphy

DEPARTMENTS

PUBLISHER'S NOTES 3

EDITOR'S CORNER 4

Q&A.5

David Hunt

DISCOVERING THE WORKPLACE SHELL 13

Brett Kotch

REVIEW 15

Ron Beauchemin & Paul Duncanson

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 30

ADVANCED PM PROGRAMMING 32

Introducing Containers . . . Guy Scharf

THE ULTIMATE OS/2 GAME 43

Paint By Numbers . . . Timur Tabi

OBJECT OBJECTIVE 45

Building Programs . . . David Moskowitz

IN THE TRENCHES 48

Eric Pinnel

In order to help you juggle all the po ssib//^

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OS/2 Monthly

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PUBLISHER'S

NOTES

W e want to thank all our readers for their patience in waiting longer
than usual for this sixth issue of OS/2 MONTHLY. We have
switched printers and reorganized our editorial staff in an effort to
keep bringing you the best possible articles, columns and features dealing
with OS/2. Your subscription will be extended to include the full year’s com¬
plement of magazines.

This month, we are adding a new column, “Beginners’ Slope” by Bill
Zinsmeyer. As the title would indicate, this column will approach OS/2 from a
beginner’s level and will soon have you off the bunny slope.

We’re also happy to announce that next month we will be featuring a new
column which will explain the “ins” and “outs” of REXX.

If you possess a particular area of expertise and would like to contribute
an article to OS/2 Monthly, please submit an outline of your idea and a sam¬
ple of any previously published writing to:

JDS Publishing
P.O. Box 4351
Highland Park, NJ 08904

Joel Siragher

Publisher

Joel Siragher

Editor

Brett Kotch

Contributing Editors

Les Bell, Bert Moshier,

David Moskowitz, Eric Pinnel, Guy

Scharf, Timur Tabi, Ron Beauchemin

Technical Review Board

Noel Bergman, Larry Finkelstein
Mel Hallerman

Graphical Director

Deborah S. Weightman

Volume 1, Issue 6, December 1992

OS/2 Monthly is published monthly by
JDS Publishing, P.O. Box 4351, Highland
Park, NJ 08904, 908-246-0952.

OS/2 Monthly is published
independently of IBM Corp., which is not
responsible in any way for editorial policy
or other content of this publication.

Postmaster: There is a second class
subscriber mailing permit pending. The
original entry point is the Kilmer Mailing
facility in New Brunswick, NJ. Address
corrections requested.

Subscription rate for the U.S. is $39. for
12 issues. Canadian and Mexican are $45.
All other foreign subscriptions are $77.
Visa/Mastercard accepted.

OS/2 Monthly welcomes unsolicited
submission of written material and
artwork; however, no responsibility for
such submissions can be assumed by the
publisher in any event.

OS/2 Monthly is a trademark of JDS
Publishing. All rights to contents of this
publication are reserved, and nothing may
be reproduced from it in whole or part
without first obtaining permission in
writing from the publisher.

Articles and items appearing in OS/2
Monthly do not necessarily reflect the
views and opinion of JDS Publishing, its
staff, or organization.

All trademarks used herein are property
of their respective holders.

OS/2 is a registered trademark of IBM
Corporation and is used by JDS Publishing
under license.

EDITOR'S CORNER

I believe that we are all in agreement when I claim that with
regards to version numbers, 2.0 > 3.1. But yet, if we were
to multiply each by one million we arrive, at the following
contradiction:

( 1 , 000 , 000 ) * 2.0 < ( 1 , 000 , 000 ) * 3 . 1 .

IBM has sold one million shrink wrapped copies of OS/2 and
comparing this to Microsoft’s first million, there is a profound dif¬
ference in the impact that this number has had. Contrary to popu¬
lar thought, the above contradiction isn’t based entirely upon the
efficiency and ability of the Microsoft marketing machine vs. IBM’s
or solely on the technical merit of Windows.

When the success of Windows is discussed, there is a small dis¬
tinction that is frequently overlooked. Microsoft (MS) would want
you to believe that with the release of 3.1, they single-handedly re¬
vamped the personal computing market. Actually, it wasn’t until
3.1 became available that the personal computing market had the
opportunity to revamp itself.

In the beginning of the silicon era, change was fast, people
packed up their belongings and moved to the frontiers with trepi¬
dation, needing to keep abreast of all of the latest changes.
Magazines focusing on personal computers kept us informed and
kept happy.

After several years, the market grew to enormous proportions.
Killer apps were few and far between and the value of the mam¬
moth computer magazines decreased. People were saturated with
information and content with the knowledge that their grey matter
now contained. Change wasn’t as radical and a constant stream of
new information was not as necessary as it had been. Reporting on
computers had become stale. Change was necessary and Windows
provided the trade magazines with an opportunity to convince the
public that their magazines were needed.

Windows represented change, it offered magazines a new av¬
enue to seduce the reader to continue subscribing. All of the major
areas of computing had been defined, so it was time to change
how we interacted with computers. This is where the genius of MS
lies. They saw the decline in the computing magazine market and

OS/2 Monthly

revived it. This would explain the overbearing prejudice of
Windows over OS/2.

Possibly one of the most honest statements I have read, is the
general atmosphere about OS/2 supporters, and possibly why we
are so zealous at times, is from Mark Minasi, which originally ap¬
peared in the October issue of COMPUTE:

“Despite my personal feeling that OS/2‘s success would be a
very positive thing for the industry, you can’t have missed the
somewhat defensive tone of this article. The defensiveness arises
mainly because, while there are reasons to like OS/2 as well as
reasons to dislike it, I fear that many won’t even give it a try
because of the very uninformed press this operating system has
received.”

This obviously puts IBM in a difficult position. Even with fight¬
ing the wave of prejudice IBM is having some success and new
end-users are entering the arena. As a result, we at OS/2 Monthly,
have had many requests for more material focused at the new¬
comer to OS/2. We have gone back to the beginning. Bill
Zinsmeyer alleviates the installation blues for OS/2, in his new col¬
umn, which for its introduction is our cover article.

AND THE WINNER IS...

The OS/2 Golf T-Shirt goes to Bert Moshier for being the first per¬
son to spot OS/2 Monthly in a store. Congratulations Bert!

Bert Moshier

Brett Kotch

• December 1992

Q&A

David

Hunt

David Hunt is the Manager
of R&D for a small Midwest
computer service bureau.
One of his current duties is
the supervision of an OS/2
development group. He is
anxiously awaiting your
questions and can be
reached on CompuServe as
76326.3641 or by letter care
of editor at the address in
the masthead

I did something a little bit unusual for me a
couple of weeks ago, I went on a sales call.
Generally speaking, I couldn’t sell anything to
save my soul. If I depended on a sales job to
provide for my family we’d probably be among
the ranks of the homeless.

Over the past thirty years I’ve discovered two
exceptions to that rule. Sometime during my col¬
lege years I realized that I could sell things that I
truly believed in and enjoyed. One of those
things is bicycles. My most enjoyable college job
was as a mechanic and sometime salesperson in
a bike shop.

I can’t explain the joy that I get just from see¬
ing a beautiful bike. And to ride one is almost
ecstacy. One of the best times I had at the recent
Windows & OS/2 Conference in Boston was
when I wandered into a bike shop and spent an
hour just hanging out.

The second thing that I discovered I could sell
during college was cars — not the standard used
“sleds” that you see littering the ever-present
“Honest John’s”, or the bland clones that Detroit
and the Japanese peddle, but truly breathtaking
true automobiles such as classic sedans or sports
cars. Unfortunately, most of those automobiles
have been snatched up by people who have too
much money and not enough time. Conse¬
quently, prices have skyrocketed and the beloved
beasts sit in garages waiting to be exercised by an
owner who never appears. I could sell the darn
things, but I sure can’t afford to buy one.

So what’s the point? I’ve discovered some¬

thing else I can sell — OS/2! A friend of mine
sells computers in the retail channel. I don’t see
how any of them make money, but he’s got a
house, and his family seems to have food and
clothing. A couple of weeks ago he called to ask
a favor. One of his old accounts had been turned
over to another rep at the store and had been
handled badly. In fact the account (a rather large
one) was planning to walk. Management fired
the other rep and gave the account back to my
friend. He was trying to salvage whatever he
could from a bad situation when he was asked
about OS/2.

At this point my friend had a problem. He
was trying to reestablish his firm as a knowl¬
edgeable vendor, but nobody there knew any¬
thing about OS/2. (At this point I could mention
that I’d been trying to get them to support OS/2
for a year or so, but that is probably another top¬
ic.) So he called me to ask a favor. “Sure” I said,
“I’d be happy to go on a sales call with you.” It
was actually fun.

We visited the network support group for a
large hospital. My friend had convinced them to
give his firm one chance to make things right
and had just sold them six or eight IBM PS/2
computers. These machines were going to come
preloaded with OS/2 2.0. What the support folks
wanted to know was “do we want to keep OS/2
on these machines, or should we reformat the
drives and load DOS (and maybe Windows) on
them?” Having been responsible for supporting a
medium-sized network at one time, I could un¬
derstand where they were coming from. Did it
make any since for them to accept and support
one more operating system?

In talking with them, several things came out.
Ninety-nine percent of their people were using
DOS only. A couple of folks around the hospital
had experimented with Windows (I assume that
none of them had inhaled.) The only one in the
whole organization who actually used Windows
on a regular basis was their boss, and he thought
DOS and Windows were the way to go.

I pointed out that I wasn’t there to sell them
on OS/2. My only role was to answer their ques¬
tions about the operating system. I did make it
clear that I was an OS/2 user and that my job in¬
volved the supervision of a fairly ambitious OS/2
development project. I explained to them that as

OS/2 Monthly •December 1992

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a result I felt fairly comfortable posing as an
OS/2 expert. One other noteworthy item,
just to make the story semi-believable: the
company my friend works for is loosely
affiliated with the one I work for, so every¬
one was comfortable that I did indeed rep¬
resent. some in-house expertise for the re¬
tailer.

The questions came fast and furious.
How much disk space does OS/2 need?
How much memory would their worksta¬
tions need to run it? Are there applications
available to run on OS/2? Is OS/2 hard to
use and support? Would OS/2 run on their
clones?

Slowly and surely, I worked through
their onslaught. To install the entire OS/2
operating system, I would want at least
40MB of free space on the drive. This
would allow for the entire system (full hard¬
ware support, online help, applets, etc.)
and would leave room for an effective swap
file. I’ve installed OS/2 on 30MB drives
without much trouble, but I’m not sure I’d
want to run it on anything less. By the time
you add comparable functionality to DOS
or Windows, you are frequently nearing this
disk volume and the complexity of the con¬
figuration will be much worse.

I mentioned that initially IBM had said
that systems would need 4MB to run OS/2.
I’ve run on systems with 4MB and it isn’t
enjoyable. Even IBM is now saying 6MB is a
better minimum. Most anybody else you
talk with is saying 8MB. Memory is cheap
enough now that I try to get 16MB on all
the systems I order for my department. I
don’t have anything less than 12MB,
though. You just can’t justify giving up the
performance improvement for the minimal
dollars that an extra 4MB to 8MB of RAM
would save you. These memory require¬
ments are certainly greater than what DOS
needs (or can use). Windows will run (I’ve
been told) on 2MB systems. To get it to run
well, though, you should consider 6MB to
8MB. This isn’t much different than OS/2.

There are OS/2 applications available to
do just about anything you would want to
do on a computer. The one caveat is that
they may not be the ones that you are used
to using under DOS. On the other hand,
just about everybody who is anybody has a
Windows version of their software out now.
The one thing that OS/2 will do very well
though (better than Windows) is run your
current DOS applications. In explaining that
all of the current DOS applications they are
supporting could be running (not just ap¬

pearing) in windowed sessions on an OS/2
desktop I hit upon something that was real¬
ly worth something to the folks at this hos¬
pital. The icing on the cake was when I told
them that each of these sessions could be
individually configured. Things like “unlim¬
ited” EMS or XMS memory for DOS applica¬
tions that are currently causing unbearable
configuration and support problems on
their DOS workstations went a long way to¬
ward selling the folks in the room that after¬
noon.

We talked about ease-of-use. I men¬
tioned an in-house project our group had
just completed. We wrote an application for
a group of users in our company who are
dyed-in-the-wool computerphobes, and
they love it! The interface is intuitive, easy
to learn and easy to use in their day-to-day
work environment. Our in-house support
team has found that support time has been
cut. In short, the interface has been a re¬
sounding success.

Would OS/2 run on their clones? This 1
could answer with absolute certainty, Yes! I
knew it would because my company had
bought the same clones that they had in the
hospital.

At the end of the meeting they were all
interested and I invited them to stop by my
shop for a visit. They were up two days lat¬
er with my friend. I demonstrated many of
the DOS applications they were supporting
running on my OS/2 desktop. I showed
them an OS/2 communication program
downloading messages from CompuServe
at the same time that I had a DOS commu¬
nication program downloading files from a
BBS through our network modem pool,
both in the background! My group showed
them some of the neat “gee-whiz” stuff and
multi- media gizmos that we play with in
our development projects. Finally, we went
to visit the group of computerphobes who
are using OS/2 in their day-to-day work. At
the end of the visit the folks from the hospi¬
tal (and my friend) were thrilled.

The next day my friend called. He'd de¬
cided to install OS/2 on his computer and
said that maybe it was something he should
be using. I’d managed to sell OS/2 to him.

I haven’t talked to him for a month now
— we’re both too busy most of the time to
keep in touch on a regular basis. I think
that maybe tomorrow. I’ll take a few min¬
utes to track him down. I’d like to find out
what the folks from the hospital have decid¬
ed about OS/2. After all, how else can I
know how good an OS/2 salesman I am?#

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

THE OS/2 2.0 DOS ENVIRONMENT

PART III

Less

Bell

Les continues his discussion on the DOS
environment in OS/2 2.0 — Editor

OS_STARTUP_DRIVE

See the section on Running Real DOS, below.
This parameter can be set before starting the
VDM only,

DOSJJMB

If this parameter is set on (the default is off),
then DOS will manage Upper Memory Blocks in
the twilight zone and make them available both
to applications and to the DEVICEHIGH= and
LOADHIGH statements. Occasionally applica¬
tions want to directly access these areas and will
not run when DOS_UMB is set ON. This parame¬
ter can be set before starting the VDM only.

DOS.VERSION

The DOS_VERSION setting specifies a list of pro¬
grams and the version number which the system
should report when queried by these programs.
This allows applications which expect a particu¬
lar version of DOS to run, since the DOS emula¬
tion simply responds with the appropriate ver¬
sion number regardless of what the system
actually is. This parameter can be set at any time
before the problem application is run.

DPMI_DOS_API

Under OS/2 2.0, an extension to the DPMI speci¬
fication, known as DOS API services has been
implemented. This frees the application from
having to set up buffers before issuing some
DOS and BIOS API calls, instead allowing pro¬
tected mode applications to use protected mode
buffers, referenced by protected mode selectors.
The translation services perform any necessary
copying of the buffers.

Applications which are aware of these exten¬
sions can turn them on or off if this parameter is
set to AUTO. Alternatively, it can be set to ON or
OFF. This parameter can be set before starting
the VDM only.

DPMI_MEMORY_LIMIT

Up to 512 MB of DPMI memory is available in
each VDM, although the default is 3 MB. This pa¬
rameter can be set before starting the VDM only.

EMS_FRAME_L0CATI0N

Normally, the EMS page frame is located in a 64K
block in the VDM’s twilight zone. However, this
will occasionally clash with a hardware device
which the application needs to use. If this oc¬
curs, the first strategy should be to use the
EMS_HIGH_OS_MAP_REGION to reduce the ex¬
tra address region to zero. If this does not fix the
problem, then the page frame can be relocated
to one of the listed addresses.

A useful technique is to reduce the size of the
DOS_RMSIZE setting and then locate the page
frame below 640 KB where it is almost guaran¬
teed that no devices can be present to cause
clashes.

This parameter can be set before starting the
VDM only.

EMS_HIGH_0S_MAP_REGI0N

This setting is used to increase the size of the
EMS buffers over the default page frame. It
should be used in conjunction with the
MEM_EXCLUDEJREGIONS and MEM_INCLUDE_
REGIONS settings.

This parameter can be set before starting the
VDM only.

EMS_L0W_0S_MAP_REGI0N

Some multitasking environments, e.g. Windows
and Desqview, can use back-filled memory be¬
low 640 KB. This setting enables this feature and
specifies how much memory is to be regarded as
back-filled. The default is 384 KB.

This parameter can be set before starting the
VDM only.

EMS_MEMORY_LIMIT

This setting controls the amount of expanded
memory available in a VDM. Setting this to zero
will disable EMS in that VDM; setting it to a huge
value — e.g. 32 MB — simply wastes memory
and causes swapping.

This parameter can be set before starting the
VDM only.

HW_N0S0UND

This setting enables and disables sound output
from programs. Sometimes sound is degraded by
the systems timeslicing, at other times multiple
programs compete for speaker access and all but

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

THE OS/2 DOS ENVIRONMENT PART III

one should be disabled. This parameter can
be set at any time.

HW_R0M_T0_RAM

This parameter causes the system to copy
the machine’s ROM BIOS into RAM for
faster access. This is the same feature as the
ROM Shadowing provided by some system
BIOSes.

This parameter can be set before starting
the VDM only.

HW_TIMER

When this setting is enabled, applications
can have direct access to the 8253 counter¬
timer circuit ports. With it disabled, access
to the 8253 is virtualized, causing a delay
between the timer being read and its value
returned to the VDM so that readings are
inaccurate. This means that some applica¬
tions — for example, games — may run

unacceptably slowly or may not run at
all unless allowed direct access to the
timer.

Although this setting can be changed at
any time, it may not work correctly if an ap¬
plication programs the timer while it is vir¬
tualized and then reads it with direct hard¬
ware access. Nonetheless, it can be useful
to experiment with this setting and observe
the changes in performance.

IDLE.SECONDS

The operating system watches for programs
performing rapid polling of the keyboard,
and when it sees this, reduces the priority of
the application on the assumption that it is
idling. However, some programs may pause
briefly to allow user input and then resume
normal operation, and if the priority has
been dropped, performance will be degrad¬
ed. To override this, this setting disables the

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IDLE_SENSITIVITY function for a number of
seconds after useful work is detected.

If a program appears to run slowly when
waiting for user input, this value can be in¬
creased.

IDLE_SENS!TIVITY

The idle sensitivity is the percentage of the
maximum possible polling rate above
which an application is considered to be
idling. The default is 75% — if an applica¬
tion polls more frequently than this, then its
priority is dropped. However, the applica¬
tion may be doing useful work while
polling the keyboard frequently, and a pri¬
ority drop would slow it down unaccept¬
ably. If this is the case, this setting should
be increased. Setting it to 100% turns off
idle detection completely.

KBD_ALTHOME_BYPASS

In the default setting (Off), the Alt-Home
keyboard combination will switch a DOS
session between full-screen and windowed
modes. With it set to ON, this keystroke se¬
quence is ignored, and the user must use
Ctrl-Esc to switch to the session manager
and then use the DOS sessions context
menu to switch to windowed mode. This
parameter can be set at any time.

KBD_BUFFER_EXTEND

This parameter increases the size of the
keyboard type-ahead buffer to the level
available in OS/2 VIO windows. A few ap¬
plications which read raw input will not
benefit, but few will be adversely affected,
so the default setting is ON. This parameter
can be set at any time.

KBD_CTRL_BYPASS

This parameter is used to disable either of
the Ctrl-Esc and Alt-Esc hot-key combina¬
tions which switch screen groups or activate
the Window List, respectively. This allows
the DOS application to use these key com¬
binations for its own purposes.

KBD_RATE_L0CK

With this setting turned ON (the default is
OFF) applications are prevented from alter¬
ing the system keyboard repeat rate.

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

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Arcadia Workplace Companion is a trademark of Arcadia Technologies, Incorporated.

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

THE OS/2 DOS ENVIRONMENT PART III

MEM_EXCLUDE_REGIONS

This setting is used to specify ranges of ad¬
dresses in the twilight zone which must be
excluded from use as EMS pages or XMS
UMBs because they are used by adapter
cards such as Super VGAs or network cards.
This parameter can be set before starting
the VDM only.

MEMJNCLUDE.REGIONS

This setting is used to force inclusion of
memory ranges in the twilight zone, even
though the system might suspect that they
could be used by hardware adapters. If the
user knows that a DOS VDM session will not
use a particular hardware adapter, then its
address range can be marked for inclusion,
and allocated as EMS pages or EMS UMBs to
improve performance. This parameter can be
set before starting the VDM only.

MOUSE_EXCLUSIVE_ACCESS

Some applications, such as Microsoft Win¬
dows and Flight Simulator, perform their

own mouse management, and if their mouse
sensitivity or speed threshold settings are
different from those of Presentation
Manager, then the application mouse point¬
er and the PM pointer will drift apart, so that
the user cannot tell the actual position of the
real mouse pointer. The user can fix this
problem by turning this setting ON, and
then clicking either mouse button inside the
VDM window. This will turn off the PM
pointer. It can be recovered by pressing Alt,
Ctrl-Esc or Alt-Esc.

PRINT_TIMEOUT

This setting specifies the number of seconds
between the initiation of printing and the
closing of the spool file. While the default
of 15 seconds is fine for screen dumps and
other small print jobs, more sophisticated
print jobs and complex print formatting may
take longer and will therefore be split into
multiple spool files, producing unaccept¬
able print jobs (page breaks in the wrong
places). The timeout can be set to any

period between 0 (no timeout) and 3600
seconds.

VIDEO_FASTPASTE

With this setting enabled (default is dis¬
abled), the Paste menu option will insert
text from the clipboard at high speed. This
can over-run the buffers of applications
such as the Microsoft Programmers Work¬
bench and its precursor, the M editor, and
other applications which monitor the key¬
board interrupts directly.

VIDE0_M0DE_RESTRICTI0N

If the user knows that an application will
always keep an EGA or VGA video card in
MDA or CGA mode, there is no need for
base memory to end at 640 KB - it can ex¬
tend up to the base of the MDA at B0000H,
giving an extra 64 KB of user memory, or
even to the base of the CGA at B8000H, for
an extra 96 KB of memory. Possible settings
are NONE, MDA and CGA. If an application
unexpectedly switches the virtual display

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OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

LES BELL

into a high-res graphics mode, this may
overwrite memory now used by the appli¬
cation, so use with some care. This pa¬
rameter can be set before starting the
VDM only.

VIDEO J)NDEMAND_MEMORY

With this setting turned ON (default is OFF),
the system delays allocating a video buffer
for the worst-case (high-resolution graphics)
video modes. This means that for many sys¬
tems operating in low-memory conditions,
considerable memory can be saved. How¬
ever, if an application switches into a high-
res graphics mode, allocation of a video
buffer will be attempted. If there
is insufficient memory in the system, the
DOS application will be frozen and unless
the user is able to reclaim memory by closin-
g other applications, it may be unrecoverable
with a risk of lost data. Use with care.

VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION

With this setting turned OFF (default is ON)
some applications which show perfor¬

mance degradation because of the way
in which they poll the video retrace port
will speed up. However, the drawback
is that screen-switching will not be as reli¬
able.

VIDEO_ROM_EMULATION

With this option turned ON, the system
provides a 32-bit emulation of the ROM
-BIOS INT 10H video functions, rather than
using the machines ROM BIOS. This is pos¬
sible because the VIO subsystem design is
basically modeled on the INT 10H BIOS
functions anyway. This will provide a dra¬
matic performance boost for applications
running in a window. However, there is
a possibility of incompatibility with video
cards which implement enhanced func¬
tionality.

VIDEO_SWITCH_NOTIFICATION

When this setting is turned ON (default is
OFF) applications are notified when they
are switched to or from full-screen mode.
This will cause them to redraw their

screens. However, the OS/2 screen driver
will usually redraw the screen automatically
in any case, so re-drawing it again simply
causes performance degradation. Windows
2.x and 3.x can utilize this notification, as
can applications which are written to the
MS-DOS 3.0 Task Switcher API. This setting
can be changed at any time.

VIDE0_WIND0W_REFRESH

This parameter sets the window update
rate. Slowing it from the default of 0.1
seconds can provide more CPU time for the
application, but making it very slow can
render the application near-unusable.
However, this setting affects only normal
text-type output and does not affect screen
updates based on keyboard activity or syn¬
chronous scrolling operations.

VIDE0_8514_XGA_I0TRAP

When this setting is turned ON, the system
allows the application direct access to the
8514/A display adapter hardware for faster
operation. This also eliminates the overhead
of the 1 MB virtual video buffer. However,
switching away from the application will
freeze it, and the system may not be able to
switch back reliably (unless the application
responds to the VIDEO_SWITCH_NOTIFI-
CA-TION callback above). An application
run in this mode cannot be windowed. This
parameter can be set before starting the
VDM only.

XMS.HANDLES

This parameter specifies the number of XMS
handles available for Extended Memory
Blocks. It should be increased from the de¬
fault of 32 only if an application uses a lot
of XMS handles. This parameter can be set
before starting the VDM only.

XMS_MEMORY_LIMIT

Specifies the global and per-VDM XMS
memory limits. The default setting is 4 MB
overall and 1 MB per VDM. This parameter
can be set before starting the VDM only.

XMS_MINIMUM_HMA

This setting specifies the minimum amount
of memory an application must request be¬
fore being granted the HMA (since the HMA
is not shareable, an application which uses
only a small part of it is wasting an impor¬
tant resource). The default value is zero.

1 i

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

THE OS/2 DOS ENVIRONMENT PART III

This parameter can be set before starting
the VDM only.

Virtual Machine Boot

Although the DOS settings above should al¬
low almost all DOS programs to run with at
most a little tweaking, there will be some
that pose some problems. For example, a
few programs depend on DOS data struc¬
tures which are not present in the OS/2
DOS emulation. Some use undocumented
functions, or features. A particular problem
for the DOS emulation is programs which
require a block device driver, since the DOS
emulation only allows character device dri¬
vers to be loaded.

However, the VDM component of OS/2
2.0 is able to emulate a complete 8086-
based PC: processor, display, keyboard, in¬
terrupt controller, DMA controller, ROM
BIOS and other supporting hardware. It is
therefore possible for the system to create a
virtual machine which is used to boot gen¬
uine DOS in the normal fashion, by loading
the boot sector of a floppy or hard disk log¬
ical drive and allowing the bootstrap
process to continue. In fact, the virtual ma¬
chine can boot any version of DOS, DOS
clones such as DR-DOS 5.0 and 6.0, other
operating systems like CP/M and
Concurrent DOS or even a PS/2 Reference
Diskette (though the Reference Diskette will
not be able to change the configuration of
the real machine, nor should you attempt to
run diagnostics).

Multiple VMB sessions can be started,
with multiple different operating systems
running simultaneously, a real benefit for
software developers testing compatibility.

A VMB is created by copying an existing
DOS windowed or full-screen session,
changing the Program title field in its
Settings Notebook to show that it is a gen¬
uine DOS session, and then setting the
DOS_STARTUP_DRIVE field to reflect the
location to boot from. Possible settings for
this field include:

Startup Drive Meaning A: Boot from the

floppy in drive A:

C: Boot from the primary

DOS partition of drive C:
C:\BOOTIMG\DOS50.VMB Boot from the

specified boot image file

Typically, ones first experiments are done
using the A: drive. Take an existing DOS
bootable floppy and try it: a plain vanilla
DOS boot floppy should come up with no
trouble at all - the only things to watch out
for are device drivers for expanded or ex¬
tended memory, such as HIMEM.SYS and
EMM386.EXE, which should be replaced
with the equivalents supplied as part of
QS/2 2.0. A similar MOUSE.SYS driver is
supplied for mouse access.

However, if VMB will be used regularly,
the user should install DOS (or multiple ver¬
sions of DOS) onto partition(s) on the hard
disk, using the OS/2 2.0 Boot Manager utili¬
ty. DOS must be installed on a primary par¬
tition on the first fixed disk, while OS/2 can
be installed on an extended partition on
any drive in the machine.

Of course, this gives rise to another prob¬
lem: when booting real DOS, the user
wants access to extended memory, using
the DOS 5.0 EMM386.EXE. But under OS/2,
the user wants to use the stub device driver,
C:\OS2\MDOS\EMM386.SYS, which calls
OS/2s memory management services.
However, there is no need to maintain two
sets of CONFIG.SYS (or AUTOEXEC.BAT)
files. Simply list both sets of device drivers
in the CONFIG.SYS file: DOS ones first,
then the OS/2 ones. When booted under
OS/2, the DOS device driver cannot get ac¬
cess to extended memory and does not in¬
stall, but the OS/2 one succeeds. Under
DOS, the DOS device drivers load correctly,
while the OS/2 drivers detect that they are
not running under OS/2 and do not install.

Now comes another problem: how can a
copy of DOS, which understands FAT file
system only, access an OS/2 HPFS drive?
For that matter, how can older copies of
DOS understand the large drives formatted
by newer versions?

OS/2 solves this problem by using a
DOS/OS/2 device driver called FSFIL-
TER.SYS. This device driver, when loaded,
acts in a very similar fashion to a network
re-director. DOS access to a local drive
which it understands is allowed to proceed
to the Virtual BIOS and access the disk
through the virtual machine. However, ac¬
cess to HPFS and large drives is trapped
and redirected through the OS/2 kernel,
which will return file handles, result codes

and data just as though a network drive was
being accessed. This even applies to access
to genuine network drives, which is redi¬
rected to OS/2 and thence to the real net¬
work re-director.

Drive letter allocations can be mapped
using the FSACCESS.EXE utility, to ensure
that both DOS and OS/2 sessions see the
various local and remote drives and parti¬
tions in the same way. Judicious use of the
VOL and LABEL commands helps a lot here.

Another technique for allowing DOS to
reside on an HPFS-formatted drive is to cre¬
ate a virtual machine boot (VMB) file. First,
a bootable DOS disk with appropriate de¬
vice drivers is created and checked by boot¬
ing off drive A:. Then a VMB file is created
from the floppy with a command such as

vmdisk a: c:\os2\mdos\dos5\dos5.vmb

The resultant 1.44MB file contains an im¬
age of the boot floppy; if the DOS_START-
UP_DRIVE of a DOS program reference
object is set to point to it, it will boot as
drive A:. As long as the file is not marked
read-only (desirable in some circumstances)
you can write to it, edit its CONFIG.SYS file,
COPY files to it and even run CHKDSK
on it!

Using this technique, I have been able to
teach DOS courses running PC DOS 3 3,
Compaq MS-DOS 3-31 and MS-DOS 5.0 all
simultaneously. In fact, if I hadn’t pointed it
out, attendees would never have realized
that the copies of DOS were in fact access¬
ing an OS/2 HPFS-formatted hard disk!

A Better DOS Than DOS?

So, is it a better DOS than DOS? In recent
months, I have explained and demonstrat¬
ed these features of OS/2 to six different
seminar audiences in the UK and Australia,
and then asked their opinions. To date, the
response has been unanimously in favor of
OS/2, There’s no way I can create a DOS
5.0 system with over 730,000 bytes of free
memory. My tests indicate that OS/2 is out¬
performing DOS in database benchmarks
by at least 40%. And under OS/2, I can al¬
locate program 32 MB of LIM 4.0 EMS
memory, 16 MB of XMS and INT15H mem¬
ory, and 512 MB of DPMI memory - some¬
thing that is going to be difficult with
DOS!” ♦

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

DISCOVERING THE
WORKPLACE SHELL

Phi-

phenomenon

Brett Kotch

In its early years Gestalt psychology seemed
revolutionary and aroused much controversy,
but by mid century it hid ceased to exist as an
entity all to itself with many of its main lessons
and factual discoveries being absorbed into the
mainstream of psychology.

The founders of Gestalt psychology, Max
Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler
argued that the nature of the parts is determined
by, and is secondary to the whole. Such whole
qualities have always been recognized but their
explicit experimental study was not fulfilled un¬
til Gestalt psychologists began studying the phi-
phenomenon. With the in-depth analyses of two
stationary lights blinking in brief succession and
their impression of movement, Gestalt psychol¬
ogy came into prominence.

Regardless of the impact that Gestalt psychol¬
ogy has on our life, there are still some areas of
science which are just now slowly starting to
learn a lesson from the Gestalt doctrine. With
the introduction of the graphical user interface
(GUI), and the desire to build a better GUI, sys¬
tem designers are eager to distinguish their new¬
ly formed interfaces from their character based
predecessors.

Soft & GUI CommandLine

File Command Help

C:\

lobject \apps

Designers must realize that as superb as a
GUI might be, it will never replace the com¬
mand user interface (CUI). Especially now with
the proliferation of CUI’s available for OS/2, (the
Hamilton C shell, the Thompson Toolkit and its
implementation of the Korn shell and the MKS
toolkit and its implementation of the Kom shell
along with all of their tools) it would be a
shame to divorce the two technologies.

When I organize each month’s issues into the
various stages of the editorial cycle, it is much
easier to use the graphical abilities of the WPS
to get the job done. Links provide a vital role in
allowing me to represent one article in a direc¬
tory labeled by that authors name and in a di¬
rectory detailing the state in which it is in the
editorial cycle, and at the same time, with only
one copy. By making the folder a work area, I
can close and open up all of the folders that I
had been using in my previous session with just
one click. Although, if I want to inspect a direc¬
tory which is not part of my regular agenda, it
entails finding the drive icon, and profusely
clicking until I get to the desired folder. The end
result is a desktop full of windows.

Some developers have recognized this and
have begun developing
programs to bridge this
_ gap. One is CommandLine.

J Instead of fondling the
mouse to get the desired
folder, its a hot-key away.
Once you have received
the CommandLine prompt,
typing in “lobject” followed
by the directory you want
sends a shadow of the

When the discussion about user interfaces is
entertained, it usually centers around two
schools of thought, graphical or chacter-based
modes. I would like to postulate another possi¬
bility, a graphical PLUS character-based mode.
The combination of the two can yield a far bet¬
ter GUI than either one can deliver alone.

folder to the desktop and opens that folder.

In the process of writing this article I stum¬
bled upon a very powerful integration of the
CUI and the WPS built right into OS/2, but that’s
another article. I hope that this trend towards a
marriage between the GUI and CUI continues.
Regardless of how advanced the WPS becomes

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

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OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

REVIEW

• PrntScrn

• Gpf

Ron

Beauchemin

Paul

Duncanson

PrntScrn

If you have ever had the opportunity to create a
user manual for software, then you have certain¬
ly found the axiom “A picture is worth a thou¬
sand words” to be true.

In the case of a user manual for computer
products, the pictures are nearly always full or
partial representations of a computer screen.
Your first reaction might be that you can simply
print the screen. However, the Print Screen key
is an all or nothing proposition — your only
choice is to get a print of the entire screen.

In many cases that is inappropriate. For exam¬
ple, when there is a need to focus the user’s at¬

tention on a dialog box or pop-up information
box, a print of the entire screen might confuse
the reader and your instruction would be less ef¬
fective.

Fortunately there is a product that addresses
the need — PrntScrn by Mitnor Software. It is
shipped with both the 16 bit and 32 bit versions
on the same diskette.

PrntScrn comes with a 52-page manual that is
very well illustrated and easy to use. The manual
has two installation sections which address the
differences between the OS/2 1.x Presentation
Manager interface and the Workplace Shell inter¬
face delivered with OS/2 2.0. Users who are new
to OS/2 2.0 will appreciate the fact that the install

° jDj

Prn t S c r n D atefTi me

Blanker

Clipboard Help

PM Clipboard Bit Map

No scaling

Rectangular Region No color mapping Blanker Inactive

PrntScrn Options

Destination

PM Metafile
PC Paintbrush File

PM Clipboard Metafile
TIFF File

TIFF File (compress)

~ i mmmmmm mm

^ Prmiet Warnings
Scaling for Printer

Double size
Triple size
Quadruple size
Maximum integer size

Area to Copy

Entire Screen
Active Window
Active Client Area
Select Window
Select Client Area

Rectangular Region

Cancel

oramiiariKTsMi

Map 256 colors to 2
Map 256 colors to 8
Map 256 colors to 16

Mouse Pointer

• Hide during copy
Show during copy

PrntScrn Icon/Window
Hide during copy
• Show during copy

Beep During Delay
• Beep each second
No Beep

Delay Before Copy
No Delay

♦:

min

sec

Help Mapping'

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

REVIEW

procedure takes them step by step through
the process of launching the install program
from the Workplace Shell.

The installation process determines
which version of OS/2 is being executed on
the machine, and based on that determina¬
tion, either installs the 16 bit version (OS/2
1.3) or the 32 bit version (OS/2 2.0). The in¬
stallation process is quick and easy.

Once installed, PrntScrn can be invoked
by placing it in the startup folder or by dou¬
ble clicking on it’s icon in the same manner
as you would for any other application.
Once this is done, PrntScrn is ready for use.
The user can change the various options of
PrntScrn at any time by selecting it from the
OS/2 task list or by double-clicking on the
minimized icon. PrntScrn provides the capa¬
bility to capture the entire screen, the cur¬
rent active window, the client area of the
current active window, a selected window,
the client area of a selected window or any
specified rectangular area.

PrntScrn provides a color mapping facili¬
ty that allows you to map the captured
screen area to a sixteen color image, an
eight color image, a non-dithered black and
white image or a dithered black and white
image. In addition to the color mapping, a
printer scaling feature is provided. The scal¬
ing affects only the printed image which
means that images saved to disk are un¬
sealed. This is important because it allows
you to scale up an image to multiple sizes
without having to capture it again. The scal¬
ing feature uses integer scaling. This means
that the scaling must be in whole-number
multiples of the original size. The scalings
provided are double size, triple size,
quadruple size and maximum integer size.
Maximum integer size is actually an auto¬
matic print-to-fit function that selects the
largest integer size multiple that will allow
the captured image to be printed on the
current size form.

PrntScrn can also save the captured area
to disk in one of ten formats. The formats
are WordPerfect graphics, Presentation
Manager 1.2 bitmap, Presentation Manager
2.0 bitmap, Presentation Manager Metafile,
PC PaintBrush, TIFF, TIFF compressed, TIFF
Grayscale, CompuServe GIFF and Windows
bitmap.

The PrntScrn capture function is initiated
by pressing the Print Screen key. The dispo¬
sition of the captured area is determined by

the current parameter settings within
PrntScrn.

PrntScrn as has an import facility that al¬
lows the user to import Presentation
Manager 1.2 and 2.0 bitmap files, Windows
bitmap files, Presentation Manager Metafiles
and text files into the clipboard. Once a file
has been imported, it may be pasted to the
clipboard and saved in any of the ten file
.formats mentioned earlier. I tested this fea¬
ture by importing a text file, the OS/2 2.0
logo bitmap and the Windows bitmap
FROG.BMP that was distributed by Micro¬
soft on the Windows 3.1 Developer Kit
CDROM. I encountered a small problem im¬
porting the Windows bitmap from the
CDROM. PrntScrn encountered an access
error. I reported the problem to Mitnor and
they are fixing it. Once I used the OS/2
copy command to copy the Windows
bitmap from the CDROM to the hard disk,
everything worked fine. Although not
specifically mentioned in the documenta¬
tion, PrntScrn can be used as a conversion
utility to convert any of the import formats
to any of the output formats.

A moveable date/time window and a
screen blanker are built into the product.
These features are user selectable at any
time. The screen blanker will blank
Presentation Manager and OS/2 full-screen
or OS/2 windowed sessions. The blanker
has no effect on full-screen VDM applica¬
tions.

The authors thought about customer
support when they designed the product.
They built in a debugging capability that
can easily be invoked by the user. This fea¬
ture can be used to help Mitnor Software
technical support personnel quickly resolve
user problems should they occur.

I have run PrntScrn under OS/2 2.0 both
on a stand-alone PC and on a PC connected
to a Novell 3.11 token-ring network. The
network workstation uses the OS/2 2.0
Novell Requester and utilizes a LaserJet
printer attached to the network. The prod¬
uct worked fine in both environments. The
product can also be loaded on the network
server and run as a server application, but I
did not test it in that mode.

There were no noticeable performance
impacts while running PrntScrn along with
other applications. Utilizing CPU Monitor
from Bon Ami Software (which will be re¬
viewed in a later article) I was able to deter¬

mine that PrntScrn utilized 7% of the CPU
on a Northgate 386 33 MHz machine. The
7% figure is a worst-case scenario. The 7%
level was reached while PrntScrn was writ¬
ing the screen image to disk. The file was
written to disk very quickly and the CPU
utilization for PrntScrn dropped to zero.
PrntScrn provides the user with an audible
beep to signify that the capture operation is
complete. As a final test, I invoked PrntScrn
while a CD-ROM audio track was playing in
a Virtual Boot VDM. As expected with OS/2
2.0 there was no impact whatsoever on the
CD-ROM application.

I would recommend this product to any¬
one who prepares documentation, user
manuals or procedures for Windows or OS/2
applications running under OS/2. — RB

Editor's note

For those of you who would like to see a
sample of this product before you consider
purchasing it, OS/2 Monthly has used
PrntScrn exclusively since the last issue.

PrntScrn is produced by Mitnor Software
and is priced at $115. Mitnor Software
can be contacted at 918-357-1628. The
FAX number is 918-585-3303-

Gpf

Case tools have long been a good idea
whose reality has never quite lived up to
the promise. They have always taken a long
time to learn and have had limited utility.
The 4GL’s I’ve tried always seem to run out
of gas just when I need them the most, forc¬
ing me to revert back to C and just about
start over! They’re OK for prototyping but
lack the capability of producing a “World
Class Application.”

Much (for some applications, even
MOST) of the work of writing a PM
(Presentation Manager) Application or any
GUI (Graphical User Interface) is producing
the GUI itself. I’ve seen OS/2 PM applica¬
tions where the percentage of code to cre¬
ate the GUI portion of the application var¬
ied from 5% to 95% of the total code. Add
to this the complexity of creating the hyper¬
text help data (in an IPF file format) and
making Resource files to reference text
strings, icons, and other resources. Also add

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OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

RON BEAUCHEMIN & PAUL DUNCANSON

that most business applications must refer¬
ence a data base and that means SQL
(Structured Query Language) mixed with C
in a SQC file. A good OS/2 PM programmer
is not going to be produced overnight.
Learning the basics will take six months or
more on one's own.

Developing a 32 bit OS/2 PM app means
using the IBM C Set/2 and the IBM Workset.
As good as the IBM Workset is, and even
with 8.5 megabytes of excellent sample
code, not everything is covered. The next
hurdle facing OS/2 is to produce enough
quality applications to show the superiority
of applications that fully utilize the features
of the operating system. But, with a steep
learning curve and a real shortage of quali¬
fied OS/2 v2.0 PM programmers, how will
this demand be met?

The answer is Gpf (GUI Programming
Facility) from Gpf System, Inc. My first
close-up look at Gpf was in May of 1991 at
the first of the IBM OS/2 v2.0 Technical
Seminars in Texas. It looked really
promising, but with a $3600 price tag and
only a 16 bit version for OS/2 1.x, I decided
to wait. As I have said, I’ve bought things
that look good in the past only to be disap¬
pointed and be out the money too. Well,
Gpf has lowered the price to $995.00,
added features, and recently released a
OS/2 v2.0 32 bit version that not only does
it all, but does it all amazingly well. Anyone
doing serious OS/2 v2.0 PM simply must
buy this product. It will save it’s entire cost
in the first week!

The value of Gpf is 3 fold:

1. As a programmer training tool.

2. As a rapid prototyping tool.

3. As a GUI visual programming tool or
GUI screen painter to automate the produc¬
tion of C, IFP, Resource, and SQC files.

The first step in using Gpf in any of the
three ways is to invoke Gpf and load an
existing project in development or to in¬
voke the menu to define a new project.
You simply give the project a name,
choose a copyright message and compiler,
and indicate whether or not you will be us¬
ing the OS/2 Database Manager. Then, you
start opening windows and dialog boxes
and placing controls in them. The objects
menu item of the Gpf editor lets you select
and define the characteristics of Message

Box, Presentation, Icon/Bitmap/Pointer,
User Function, and User Control objects. A
presentation object, for instance, would let
you define a font style, size, foreground
and background color as a building block.
The create menu item of the Gpf editor lets
you select a Window, Dialog Box, Menu,
and all the standard as well as the custom
controls. If you select a “Slider” control,
you can place it in a window where you
want and size it. A full screen options win¬
dow then opens up with check boxes, ra¬
dio buttons, edit fields, etc. that enumerate
all the possible variations and options
available in PM for that control. You can
also go to an “Actions” window to select
many standard actions to be associated
with that control. For various types of win¬
dows and control, these actions can be as
simple as setting the focus, or as complex
as querying the database and placing items
from it in a MLE (Multi Line Edit field). An
even more complex action require you to
write your own C code to implement the
algorithm.

As a programmer training tool, it pro¬
duces a quality, well-commented C code, as
well as an SQC, IPF, definition, resource,
and C header files. The OS/2 PM paradigm
is so rich that even an experienced PM pro¬
grammer may forget how to implement
some features. It may be quicker to simply
draw the GUI features with Gpf and let Gpf
generate the source files. New programmers
can get tremendous training benefits by ex¬
amining and studying the Gpf-produced
source file.

As a rapid prototyping tool, Gpf has an
“Animate” mode and a “Test” mode for
checking the look and feel of the GUI inter¬
face you’ve drawn before any source code
is generated. The Test mode is the simpler
of the two, allowing only simple selection
of value sets, containers or push-button, etc.
The Animate mode allows such complex
actions as the display of list boxes that actu¬
ally contain data from your SQL database.

Once you have your applications PM in¬
terface prototyped approximately as you
want it, you can let Gpf generate the source
files. Here, you are using Gpf as a visual
programming tool. This is as simple as se¬
lecting GENERATE from the TOOLKIT
menu bar item of Gpf. Gpf generates all the
different files required to generate the GUI
portions of your program. It also generates

the shell code for the algorithm portions of
the program. You, of course, must generate
the source code to actually implement the
algorithm portion.

Gpf allows three basic techniques for
merging your own code to the Gpf pro¬
duced code.

1. Directly modify the Gpf generated
source code;

2. Create a user control object;

3. Create a user function object.

The problem with directly modifying the
Gpf-generated source code is that\if you de¬
cide to revise any aspect of the GUI inter¬
face using Gpf, all your modifications to the
code will be lost when you generate the
source files again.

You can create you own controls and
use them as standard program-building
blocks. If you have a need for a circular
gauge type control, you can create one and
use it as a standard building block just like
the sliders and push-button controls.

The creation of user function objects is
the best way to merge the algorithm por¬
tions of your code, so that you can revise
the GUI with Gpf and still not lose your ad¬
ditions. By selecting USER FUNCTION OB¬
JECT from the OBJECTS entry on the Gpf
menu bar, you can add a new user function
object. You give your new user function
object a name and add up to four k of C
language source code to the resulting edit
box for inclusion into the Gpf-generated
code. Generally, you will add only one line
— a function call to a function that will en¬
capsulate that portion of your algorithm
code. Gpf knows to look for a header (.h)
file with the same base name as your appli¬
cation for the prototype of the function.
The function code itself can be compiled
and placed in a library or DLL (Dynamic
Link Library).

As a final step, you can invoke your PM
compiler to compile and link your new pro¬
gram. Then, execute the resulting EXE file
directly or via your debugger to debug the
algorithm portion of your code. It is amaz¬
ing how fast you can produce a PM appli¬
cation with Gpf. At the end of only a
two-hour Gpf session, I’ve generated appli¬
cations in which the C source file alone was
over 225k. How long would it take you to
write 225k of C source? As much as the C

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

REVIEW

source code generation time is cut, the de¬
bug time is cut even more. Since the GUI
portion and the shell code for the algorithm
are produced by Gpf bug-free, you can
concentrate on the bugs you introduced in
the algorithm portion you added. Unlike
many 4GL’s, there are no per-copy royalties
on programs you produce with Gpf.

As you can tell, I am very impressed
with this product and plan to make it part
of my standard toolkit. There are only a
couple of minor negatives. The worst is that
the tutorial needs some major revisions. It
took me several tries to get through it. To
make sure it was not just due to my own er¬
ror, 1 asked three other OS/2 PM program¬
mers to try the tutorial. Two of the three re¬
quired help from me get through it. When I
first tried the tutorial I had to call the Gpf
Systems help line. The good news is that
the help line person was extremely knowl¬
edgeable and quickly got me back on track.
Once you have completed the three tutorial
exercises, you’ll be well on your way to be¬
ing competent in using Gpf. Even if you
stop to analyze what you have done, and
take time out for a phone call or two to the
help line, you can do this in less than a day.
The second negative is that a better control
copy needs to be incorporated into the
product. For instance, I created a text value
set of the months of the year in two rows of
6 columns each. In the same dialog box, I
needed to repeat this value set to get a dif¬
ferent month. While I could copy the value
set as a text value set with two rows of 6
columns each, I had to enter the names of
the months again via the Gpf menus. While
there are ways around this, including a util¬
ity on the Gpf BBS, a better copy needs to
be integrated into the base system. But,
even with a couple of minor negatives, it’s
hard not to love a tool that lets you do in
two days, what used to take a month! Gpf is
a must-have for any serious OS/2 PM devel¬
oper. — PD

A free demo version of Gpf is avail¬
able upon request from the company.
Gpf, cn be ordered from Gpf Systems
Inc., P.O. Box 414, 30 Falls, Rd., Moodus,
CT 06469. Phone (203) 873-3300 or (800)
831-0017. Fax is (203) 873-3302.

GammaTech

Utilities for OS/2

Get the Best Performance and Reliability From
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The GammaTech Utilities are designed to
enhance and complement your OS/2 system.
Several utility functions are implemented in a
Presentation Manager shell while others are
provided in a command line mode for quick and
easy access. These utilities provide the ability
to perform the following maintenance and
recovery operations easily without extensive
technical knowledge:

Easy Graphical Installation

SAA CUA Compliant PM Interface

Optimize HPFS Volumes

MS LAN Manager Support

Recover Erased Files

Obliterate Sensitive Data

Mass Erase Selected Files

Display Volume Information

Alter File Attributes

Add Comments to Files

Alter File Time Stamps

Locate Files

Edit Disk Sectors

Test Disk Media

Display File Fragmentation

Display Directory Information

Supports HPFS386

Supports Long File Names

Supports Extended Attributes

The Best Time to Acquire Recovery Software
is Before you Need it.

For OS/2 version 2.0 or 1.3.

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OS/2 Monthly • December 1 992

ON THE EVE OF INSTALLATION

BEGINNER'S SLOPE

Welcome to the Beginner’s Slope! Since this is a column for OS/2
v2.0 novices and newcomers, a logical topic for the first column
is how to prepare for installation. With this, as with future topics,
there won’t be much discussion of the bits and bytes that make
OS/2 tick; the excellent columnists in other sections of this
magazine can provide that. Here we’ll take a more pragmatic ap¬
proach to utilizing OS/2 quickly and enjoyably, and just a small
amount of DOS knowledge on the part of the reader will be as¬
sumed.

The subject of this article was not chosen because installation
of OS/2 is difficult. Contrary to what you may have heard, it’s ac¬
tually quite easy, takes about 50 minutes and usually goes without
a hitch. But there are many ways in which to in¬
stall OS/2, so this article will attempt to guide
you through the decisions to be made. And be¬
cause installing a new operating system is a big
step that involves some risk no matter how sta¬
ble and friendly the operating system is, this ar¬
ticle will remind you to take a few sensible pre¬
cautions as well.

Many of the following steps are recommend¬
ed not just before installing a new OS, but
whenever making a major change in your sys¬
tem’s configuration, and some should be per¬
formed on a regular basis. The steps are: back¬
up all files, make certain your hardware is
appropriate for OS/2, decide on which final
configuration is desired, create a bootable DOS
floppy if one is not already available and, if you
will be changing the hard drive partitions, prac¬
tice repartitioning the hard drive under DOS us¬
ing the FDISK command. If the machine is or
will be attached to a LAN, make a record of all
network addresses in case they are needed after
installation, and be certain the proper LAN re¬
quester is available for the PC to access it under OS/2. In a similar
vein, record all frequently used telecommunications information.

The most important of the steps above is backup. Backup is
listed even before evaluation of hardware because it never hurts
to do an extra backup. Perhaps a warning to backup doesn’t be¬
long in a column aimed at beginners, because it often seems that
only experienced computer professionals forget to backup (!). But
seriously, to backup frequently is sound computing practice and
this includes taking backups of all the original diskettes that come
with your various software packages.

If OS/2 is being installed “in place”, that is to say, over DOS or
on top of an older version of OS/2, then the main purpose of back¬

ups is to restore the system to its original state if a problem arises
during installation. However, if OS/2 is going onto a recently repar¬
titioned or otherwise empty hard drive, then backups are frequently
used to place previously existing applications and data back on the
hard drive after OS/2 has been installed. As much as possible, try to
avoid using backups to place files back on the disk, especially if
data compression packages such as Fastback or Central Point
Backup are being used. Reinstalling applications from the original
diskettes is preferable to using backed up data for two reasons: first,
a package that is installed on one drive often will not work when
restored to a different drive, and second, if DOS backup/compres-
sion packages are used, there’s a good chance the software will not
be compatible with OS/2 v2.0. Even if your sys¬
tem has a large hard drive, has many files and the
original disks for the applications are not avail¬
able, it’s best to forget about using any of the
commercially marketed DOS backup packages.

If you’re experienced with PCs and are not
daunted by the challenge, you can experiment
with Fastback or one of the other packages, but
don’t stake any vital data on the outcome. In
any case, there are easier ways to save your
data for use later under OS/2: probably the best
approach is to use the BACKUP command that
comes with DOS. This won’t provide the op¬
tions, flexibility and high compression ratios of
some of the “name” packages, but there’s no
concern about compatibility. The complemen¬
tary command to be used under OS/2 is RE¬
STORE, and it will restore files even to HPFS
format (more on HPFS later). Don’t waste time
looking for it in a DOS window however; RE¬
STORE is requested from an OS/2 command
prompt.

An alternative approach, if you’re fortunate
enough to be attached to a LAN, is to reserve some space on the
server to temporarily hold data during repartitioning and installa¬
tion. If there’s enough room, no compression will be necessary
and the simple command XCOPY will suffice. If the server is not
quite that generous, then use BACKUP. Even the utility PKZIP
might provide all the compression that’s needed to backup data to
the LAN server. On the OS/2 side PKZIP2 and PKUNZIP2 usually
come installed with the system (that’s right; “usually”). When
restoring is done and everything is working, remember to delete
the data from the server so that other people can use the space
while installing OS/2. Of course, none of this applies if the hard
drive will not be repartitioned or reformatted.

Bill Zinsmeyer

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

ON THE EVE OF INSTALLATION

Now that all the files have been careful¬
ly backed up, the hardware can be evaluat¬
ed. The requirements of OS/2 are well
known: at least 4Mb of RAM, a 386SX or
better processor, about 40Mb on the hard
drive and a mouse or other pointing de¬
vice. It’s also fairly well known that run¬
ning OS/2 on a system with just these min¬
imum requirements is not much fun. A
configuration more likely to provide enjoy¬
able performance would have 8Mb of RAM,
a 386DX-25 processor and 80Mb on the
hard drive. When estimating available
space, keep in mind the possibility of delet¬
ing DOS, any memory manager and
Windows (although not everyone will feel
ready to do this). If you are installing
Extended Services or LAN Services as well,
then additional space should be kept avail¬
able. If you are considering an improve¬
ment to your system in preparation for
OS/2, note that as a general rule additional
memory will be a greater boon to OS/2
performance than a faster CPU. After the
CPU, consider improving disk speed and
disk space for better performance.

Assessing the hardware

When assessing the hardware, remember
also that OS/2 is one of the greatest tests of
components ever invented. This means, for
example, that if the CPU is an early version
containing a mask error, the first time you
find out about the problem may be when
you start to use OS/2 (just as in software,
bugs occur in CPUs). Similarly, if the RAM
consists of inexpensive chips from a disrep¬
utable manufacturer or if the printer cable
does not have all of the connections func¬
tioning that it should, OS/2 might be the
first to detect that something’s amiss.
Sometimes DOS and Windows will not re¬
veal these problems, thus giving the illu¬
sion that all is well. OS/2 is probably the
first software you’ll own that will utilize the
components of your system to their maxi¬
mum potential, so, unfortunately, it might
also be the bearer of bad tidings.

Attention must also be paid to video
adapters and SCSI drives. Certain video
cards such as Tseng-based cards do not yet
work well with OS/2. With some chips (the
“S3” chip, it has been said) erratic behavior
can result during mode-switching. Mode¬
switching is a reference to the switch into
Super VGA mode for Windows under OS/2

and the subsequent switch back to VGA for
OS/2. This is why a few critics claim OS/2
does not provide “seamless” Windows —
because there are still some difficulties with
SVGA. Just be patient and live with VGA a
little longer; these problems are being
solved quite rapidly, so the critics will soon
have to look for some other minor point to
harp on. Check with IBM or your video
card manufacturer if you are concerned.

Other peripheral devices

Other peripheral devices that are somewhat
out of the ordinary, such as scanners, tape
drives and CD-ROM drives, can pose a bit
of a challenge under OS/2, although many
work with no trouble. Certainly caution
must be exercised when planning to use a
SCSI drive with OS/2, because SCSI device
drivers (the software necessary for the de¬
vice to interface with the operating system)
are not plentiful at this point. Availability is
increasing every day, however, so check
with IBM or with the manufacturer. As for
other peripherals, it’s important to note that
if no device driver has been written for
OS/2 v2.0, it does not mean that the device
cannot function under OS/2. In almost
every case, the existing device driver can
be defined to any or all VDMs, so the scan¬
ner or other device is available within OS/2
through DOS sessions at least. (VDM stands
for Virtual DOS Machine, or a DOS box to
us novices.)

The more unconventional the peripher¬
als, the more likely you’ll want to keep na¬
tive DOS available in your filial system con¬
figuration. Even an innocuous piece of
software such as the educational games
produced by Walt Disney can be reason
enough to keep standard DOS in some
form. Because the Disney software “talks”
through a speaker attached to the printer
port and because OS/2 takes much firmer
control of printer output than DOS or
Windows (and also because the interrupt
rate for OS/2-DOS is less than native DOS)
the sound quality is unacceptable under
OS/2. This is not a shortcoming of OS/2:
sending sound through the parallel port is
a little strange anyway. Also, it’s great that
OS/2 has a sophisticated print spooling fea¬
ture and, besides, the software in question
has poor sound quality under Windows as
well. Believe it or not, IBM, among all their
other tasks, is working on getting the

Disney software to sound clear under OS/2.
To summarize then, there are a few valid
reasons why the version of DOS provided
within OS/2 might not be sufficient, such as
having unusual peripheral devices or not
wanting to explain interrupt rates to an un¬
happy 3-year-old.

A purely OS/2 setup is recommended if
it’s practical, but if not, then the decision
must be made which approach to use: Dual
Boot or Multiple Boot. Dual Boot allows
DOS and OS/2 to coexist in the C partition.
Only one system may be active at any one
time. Dual Boot, if installed over the exist¬
ing DOS, has the advantage of avoiding all
the time-consuming tasks involved with
repartitioning and reinstalling a lot of soft¬
ware. A complete backup is still recom¬
mended, of course. Installing Dual Boot
without any reformat and the associated re¬
placement of data is only practical if the
existing C partition is large enough.

Multiple Boot was originally intended to
permit the installation of more than two
operating systems (AIX could be the third,
for example) but it works very well with
just DOS and OS/2. Some people feel more
comfortable keeping the two systems dis¬
tinctly separate. Multiple Boot requires the
installation of Boot Manager, which occu¬
pies 1Mb on the hard drive, and it takes
advantage of the fact that OS/2 v2.0, unlike
DOS, does not have to reside in the pri¬
mary partition; it runs just as well from an
extended partition. Here is a typical
arrangement for Multiple Boot on a 120Mb
hard drive: 1Mb for Boot Manager (as¬
signed no letter), 4Mb for DOS (drive C),
63Mb for OS/2 with HPFS (drive D), and
the remaining 30Mb formatted as FAT for
DOS and OS/2 to share (not simultaneous¬
ly) in drive E.

Other considerations

Although Dual Boot, Multiple Boot, Boot
Manager and several sample configurations
are described quite well in the Installation
Manual, a couple of further points should
be made. One important point: if new par¬
titions are created using the FDISK feature
of OS/2, DOS FDISK will be unable to re¬
move those partitions. This only becomes
an issue if installation has to be halted and
abandoned for some reason, in which case
the OS/2 FDISK function available on the
first two or three installation disks must be

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

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View your

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

ON THE EVE OF INSTALLATION

invoked again to remove the partitions.
Also, it is recommended that one have at
least a basic understanding of primary, ex¬
tended and logical drives, which are divid¬
ed into C, D, E and so on.

More advanced users

For more advanced users, another variation
that makes clever use of the Multiple Boot
option is to reserve a partition for another
copy of OS/2. This would not squander
much space on the drive (only 4Mb) be¬
cause it would be a greatly reduced copy
of the operating system, lacking the graphi¬
cal Workplace Shell. This is, in effect, an al¬
ternative to keeping a bootable OS/2
diskette on hand and, as stated, is an op¬
tion more of interest to experienced users
than to novices. The partition could include
more files than would fit on a bootable
floppy and so have greater functionality.
For more information about OS/2 on a
bootable diskette there are help documents
available on CompuServe, on other elec¬
tronic bulletin boards and from IBM.

Many hard drives will not need to be

repartitioned, but many will still have parti¬
tions of 32Mb or smaller which are
holdovers from earlier versions of DOS. A
common question asked when planning to
install OS/2 is whether the “lower” drives C
and D can be merged together and refor¬
matted, or have their proportions relative to
one another shifted, while leaving the
“higher” drives E and F undisturbed.
Perhaps this could be accomplished using
some specially written utility to cleverly al¬
ter the file allocation tables, but for most
people it is not practical. The DOS FDISK
command will refuse to cooperate if asked
to delete a lower drive while an extended
drive still exists above it. In any case the
data on C and D would be lost.

It’s conceivable, with the right starting
configuration, that the Multiple Boot option
could be installed by merging and refor¬
matting the higher drives, leaving DOS and
other files in the lower drives undisturbed.
The process would require some proficien¬
cy with PCs, however, and should only be
tried on an experimental basis. It might
work because Boot Manager does not need

to be installed at the beginning of the hard
drive; it can also be installed at the very
end.

Another major decision to be made with
regard to installation is whether or not to
utilize the High Performance File System
(“HPFS”). The conventional DOS file sys¬
tem, which can still be used for OS/2, is
called “FAT” for File Allocation Table. FAT
was originally created as a hybrid of the file
systems found in UNIX and CP/M, and al¬
though it has been greatly improved since
its creation, it still retains some disadvan¬
tages from its relatively old heritage.

Main advantage of HPFS

The main advantage of HPFS is speed. The
FAT system still looks for files sequentially,
which can degrade access time in a large
partition. HPFS uses a search algorithm and
other enhancements to improve access
time. FAT file names are still limited to the
eight-dot-three pattern, while HPFS allows
names up to 254 characters in length and
permits greater use of special characters,
including spaces. The FAT system is prone
to file fragmentation and lost chain prob¬
lems which utilities such as Norton or PC
Tools are often used to remedy. HPFS
greatly reduces these problems so that
clean-up utilities are not necessary. HPFS
maintains not just the data contents of a file
but also the extended attributes associated
with it (as does FAT under OS/2). Extended
attributes can hold the name of the person
who created the file, the creation date and
time, the icon used to represent the file
graphically, any executable-program-to-
data-file association that’s been established
and other information.

Extended attributes provide many useful
and interesting benefits that could be the
subject of an entire article, but they won’t
be discussed here as they are supported by
both file systems in OS/2 and therefore do
not affect the HPFS vs. FAT decision. In
fact, FAT under OS/2 has been improved in
several respects (lazy writing and caching,
to name two), but HPFS is the better choice
for large hard drives. It’s interesting to note,
by the way, that OS/2 was designed to
adapt easily to new file systems in anticipa¬
tion of the day when a better one is invent¬
ed.

If HPFS is clearly superior to FAT, and it
is, one might wonder why consider using

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OS/2 Monthly • December

BILL ZINSMEYER

FAT at all under OS/2. HPFS does have
some small disadvantages, the principal
one being that if DOS is booted up inde¬
pendent of OS/2, all partitions formatted
for HPFS will be inaccessible to DOS. The
HPFS partition can seem “invisible” so that
DOS, with certain configurations, will tem¬
porarily remap the higher drive assign¬
ments while it is active, thereby confusing
software applications (and the user). If na¬
tive DOS is used frequently it is convenient
to be able to access files in all partitions.
On those rare occasions when OS/2 has a
problem it’s often very helpful to attempt a
fix from DOS, which HPFS can prevent.

The High Performance File System is not
recommended on a system outfitted with
less than 8Mb of RAM. HPFS ties up about
0.5Mb of RAM and also occupies slightly
more disk space than FAT, at least initially.
Also most DOS and Windows programs, as
well as some older OS/2 programs, cannot
accept long file names, although this is
only an inconvenience and not a genuine
reason to avoid HPFS. Long names are op¬

tional, so simply stick to the eight-dot-three
convention,while using DOS and Windows
programs, and they will work well under
HPFS (and often run faster). It is commonly
asked whether diskettes can be formatted
to use HPFS. They cannot, and when files
with long file names are copied to a FAT
diskette the names will be truncated (so
too when copying to a FAT partition on the
hard drive). However, the long name and
other extended attributes will be preserved
and restored when the file is moved back
to HPFS, as long as a DOS or Windows
program has not updated the file and lost
the extended attributes.

Bootable DOS diskette

Regardless of whether or not a major instal¬
lation such as a new OS is being consid¬
ered, no PC user should be without a
bootable DOS diskette. To create one,
place an appropriately-sized floppy in the
A drive and enter the command FORMAT
A: /S. The slash-S at the end causes the
floppy to be formatted as a system disk,

which means two hidden DOS files are
copied to the diskette and it is bootable.
After that it’s recommended that short ver¬
sions of the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CON¬
FIG.SYS files be created on the floppy
and several of the more useful DOS files
should be copied as well (certainly COM¬
MAND. COM). Try booting from the diskette
and running a program or two to be sure

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OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

the diskette is configured properly. Note
that this diskette, while handy, is not meant
to substitute for a complete, official set of
DOS installation diskettes.

If all other steps preparatory to installa¬
tion have been performed (all files have
been backed up, network addresses have
been recorded for the LAN, etc.) then the
bootable DOS diskette would be a good
way to experiment with FDISK, assuming
that the hard drive is about to be reparti¬
tioned anyway. FDISK should be one of the
DOS commands available on the diskette,
so at this point you could boot the system
from the A drive and try FDISK from the
floppy.

The installation process itself is covered
quite well by the installation manual that
comes with OS/2. Read the manual — it’s
much easier to read than most documenta¬
tion from IBM — and it’s so short that it
barely deserves the title “manual". A couple
of further points — frequently a few items
are overlooked, especially if the recom¬
mended approach is taken and the soft¬
ware is reinstalled from the original disks.
Record the telephone numbers, as well as
protocols, passwords and appropriate set¬
tings from your communications programs.

For those who are frequent users of
Windows, it is recommended you make
copies of your favorite Windows games
and applets (particularly if installing OS/2
without a DOS partition). The version of
Windows that comes with OS/2, while fully
functional, can appear a bit spartan due to
the lack of mini-applications that Windows
users are accustomed to seeing. In fact ap¬
plications written for Windows are some¬
times designed to utilize the mini- applica¬
tions in the course of their processing.
Windows games and applets work well un¬
der Win-OS/2, provided they are taken
from version 3 0, not Windows 31.

Finally, when installation is complete
and OS/2 is booted up for the first time, be
patient — it can take as long as 10 minutes
in some cases. When the Workplace Shell
is shown, the icons are visible and the disk
light has at last ceased activity, DO NOT
USE THE SYSTEM. The very first action to
perform is a Shutdown and subsequent re¬
boot. This does not mean pressing
Ctrl/Alt/Delete or abruptly turning off the
power. Avoid those habits with OS/2. To
Shutdown, click the right mouse button
once on an empty part of the main screen.
A pop-up menu will appear and one of the

options will be Shutdown — click the left
mouse button to activate it. Proceed with
Shutdown and reboot the system. There is
a remote chance of serious file comiption if
this precaution is not taken. [Some call it a
bug , others call it a feature , but either way,
do a Shutdown before using OS/2 for the
first time.]

So that’s the first installment of The
Beginner’s Slope! If it prevents a blunder
and saves one reader some time, then it’s
been a success. But never fear; if you’re
like most users, installation will go smooth¬
ly and you’ll enjoy the system more and
more every day. Soon you’ll cringe if some¬
one asks you to use a PC without OS/2!

Bill Zinsmeyer is a
programmer with many
years of experience on
mainframes who greatly
enjoys using OS/2 while
learning more about PCs. He
can be reached on
CompuServe at 71031,3436
and welcomes suggestions
for future topics.

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OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

/r*

Develop GUI applications in COBOL
without learning "C".

OS/2 Presentation
Manager
Programming
for COBOL
Programmers

Robert B. Chapman

OS/2 Presentation Manager
Programming for twa
COBOL Programmers

Robert B. Chapman

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The first book in QED’s OS/2 series teaches business
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This book covers all aspects of PM from a simple,
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initiate a PM application, and development and
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Chapman includes a disk of object code, exe¬
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resource and icon files—everything covered in the
book.

CONTENTS: Introduction. Presentation Manager.
Create PM Environment and a Window. Display
Information in a Window. Displaying Real
Information. Menu Bar, Dialog Box, Icon, and
Accelerator Tible. Multi-line Entry, Listbox, Combo
Box, Radio Buttons, Check Boxes. Modeless Dialog
Boxes. Multiple Windows. Help Processing via IPF.
Printing a PM Report. Introducing SQL I/O. Dynamic
Link Libraries. Sample Programs Compile and
Execute Environment. PM Subroutine Calls (The PM
API). PM Messages, Styles, Styles, Classes, and Codes.
Glossary. Index.

iQEPl

Publishing

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QED Publishing Group

P.O. Box 812070

170 Linden Street - Dept. C-137

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Name_

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Address _

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Presentation Manager for COBOL Programmers
with diskette for $39.95 each including
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OS /2 Monthly • December 1992

Gary Murphy

OS/2 + MIS

C orporate MIS departments have been enamored with the
idea of distributed computing for some time. Advances in
hardware, networks and tools to manage distributed com¬
puting are reducing the risk of implementing dient/server solu¬
tions in environments that are currently mainframe-centric. Once
the decision is made to implement a client/server architecture in a
corporation, data-processing professionals will be asked to help
their management choose the right platform for their environment.
Certainly, OS/2 Presentation Manager and DOS plus Windows will
be two platforms which will be considered as possible can¬
didates for deploying the graphical front-end.

Operational Stability

In the mid-1980’s, both Microsoft and IBM recognized that the de¬
sign of DOS was limited in its ability to support a heavily net¬
worked environment. Both companies also recognized the need
for a better user-interface and the desire by individuals, namely in
a corporate setting, to be able to have multiple applications avail¬
able, perhaps all running at a given time. Applications were also
growing. What once was seen as acres of memory, the 640K limit
for DOS has quickly become to be seen as a barrier. OS/2 was
designed to meet these emerging needs as the ideal multi¬
tasking client in a networked environment running large ap¬
plications.

Deploying all or part of mission-critical applications on a desk¬
top platform requires that the platform exhibit characteristics that
are more similar to the mainframe architectures. The operating
system must protect concurrently running applications from inter¬
fering with one another and keep an application from corrupting
the operating system itself. To assure operational stability, the op¬
erating system must also be able to preempt a running application
to service time-critical components. Finally, an ideal multitasking
operating system would help ensure that the application with
which the end-user is interacting provides crisp response, even
under moderate to heavy load situations.

The design of OS/2 accommodates all of these needs quite
w'ell. Microsoft Windows version 3-0 has been a popular and suc¬
cessful operating environment for very good reasons. For true
Windows applications, it has eliminated most of the limits associ¬
ated with the 640K barrier of DOS. It provides a good, consistent
graphical user interface to ease the learning curve when bringing
in new Windows applications. However, Windows was built on
the single-tasking DOS operating system and therefore is con¬
strained by what it can do. Perhaps its greatest architectural weak¬
ness is that all Windows applications share the same address
space. An errant application can potentially corrupt the data of
another application, or corrupt the integrity of Windows itself,
which results in the much-publicized Unrecoverable Application
Error. Windows, version 31 has code that tries to keep applica¬
tions from corrupting the Windows operating environment, but it

is still expected to offer little assistance in keeping one applica¬
tion from interfering with another.

Operational Synergy

The bulk of data processing done in most corporations is per¬
formed on IBM mainframes operating across SNA networks. When
choosing the platforms on which to deploy early pilots for
client/server computing, it is vital to consider the operational and
support procedures within your organization. Most mainframe sys¬
tems programmers have processes in place to collect problem
source identification and pass it on to the vendor using such tools
as IBMLink. The support for OS/2 and the Communications
Manager and Database Manager components are handled much
the same as their host counterparts in MVS, VTAM, and DB2.

A result of the design intent of OS/2 to support mission-critical
applications in a networked environment is the availability of diag¬
nostic tools. In the event of a component failure in the operating
system, OS/2 provides dump and trace facilities that are not avail¬
able with older generation desktop operating systems. These diag¬
nostic tools contribute to quicker problem resolution time, which
is essential in supporting a mission-critical application.

Investment Protection

If there is an embedded base of applications on the desktop in a
corporation today, it is likely to be DOS or Windows, not OS/2
Presentation Manager. OS/2 version 1.3, provides only minimal
support for DOS and Windows applications and is perhaps the
greatest barrier to the acceptance of OS/2 by the end-users in
many corporations.

The much-discussed OS/2 version 2.0 has the potential to over¬
come! that barrier. Support for Windows standard mode applica¬
tions and multiple applications is available in the OS/2 v2.0. In
most environments, the Windows support in OS/2 will match or
exceed the performance of Windows 3-0. The comparison, howev¬
er, needs to be made to Windows 3.1. The performance of
Windows 3.1 is expected to be better than that of version 3 0 and
thus should provide a challenge for IBM to come close to its per¬
formance characteristics.

It should be noted that when looking at benchmarks, one
should not rely on studies that compare a single task on native
Windows with a single task on OS/2’s Windows emulation. OS/2
has been shown to be able to better support a moderate to heavy
workload environment typical of a corporate application engaged
in client/server computing. If performance issues for Windows ap¬
plications are of great concern, it is best for each company to
benchmark in an environment that better simulates their anticipat¬
ed workloads than to depend on published performance reports.

The other facet of imbedded base is the skill set of the end
user. Again, if the end-user has experience with a graphical user
interface, it will be Windows, not the OS/2 Presentation Manager.

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

Migration to the OS/2 Workplace Shell found in OS/2 v2.0 will re¬
quire a new learning curve for its user base. The Workplace Shell
is a next generation graphical user interface. It implements a more
consistent and flexible way to manipulate the environment, which
offers considerably more visual clues than in prior-generation user
interfaces. When assessing the training effort, it is expected that
the costs would be considerably less than the cost incurred in
moving from the DOS command line to the Windows or
Presentation Manager vl.x environments.

If the training costs become a barrier to implementing OS/2
v2.0, the Workplace Shell can be implemented to behave in a way
similar to the Windows 3.0 or the Presentation Manager vl.x inter¬
faces.

testers, it is not possible to know if that projection is a reasonable
one. For that reason alone, 1 would not recommend that a corpo¬
ration make a business decision based on a product as immature
as NT.

The recent partnerships formed by IBM with Apple, Motorola
and others have cast a certain shadow of doubt on IBM’s future in¬
tent for OS/2. The ultimate results of these business ventures is not
known. However, IBM has publicly stated that whatever the result
of these partnerships may be, there will be an upgrade path for
OS/2 customers. Based on IBM’s commitment to OS/2 in the past
and present, it is likely that customers will have an upgrade path -
at the source code level at the very least — to whatever future pp-
erating systems are developed in those spin-off companies.

Native Program Development

If a company has chosen to develop the application using a third
generation language and coding to the native API, QS/2 and the
Presentation Manager offer a great deal more programmer facilities
than the DOS and Windows APIs. The graphics subsystem in
Presentation Manager, known as the Gpi, is significantly more so¬
phisticated than the corresponding Gdi interface found in
Windows. Interprocess communications facilities, such as pipes,
queues and semaphores, are available in OS/2 to facilitate ad¬
vanced applications design often found in client/server applica¬
tions. There is no counterpart in the Windows environment unless
the developer is willing to develop a substitute.

Another key area in the design of a client/server application is
the support for multiple threads. The simplest client/server design
would deploy a distinct thread for managing the host connection
and another thread for supporting the presentation layer of the ap¬
plication. Since Windows does not support multiple threads, a de¬
veloper implementing a client/server application would have to
devise a work-around to manage both the presentation services
and the connection to the remote data.

Development Tools

Due to the success of Windows in the marketplace, there are more
fourth-generation developer’s tools and user interface builders
available for the Windows environment than the OS/2 Presentation
Manager environment at present. This does not mean that the
OS/2 PM environment is without a range of tools to implement
client/server computing.

If there is a tool that meets the customers requirements and
there is no corresponding tool in the Presentation Manager envi¬
ronment, then Windows needs to be considered for deployment
platform for the front-end. Before making this decision, one must
consider the incremental value of a Windows-based product over
that which is available in the Presentation Manager environment
and decide if that value exceeds the value of the increased opera¬
tional stability and synergy of OS/2.

Windows NT and OS/2 Futures

Microsoft is developing a more robust operating system founda¬
tion, known as NT, for the Windows API that overcomes the limi¬
tations found in the present DOS environment. While the product
is not yet available, it is currently being positioned by Microsoft as
more of a server platform than the ideal client in a networked en¬
vironment. Microsoft states that Windows NT will be available by
early 1993. Until NT is more widely available to alpha and beta

Conclusion

The price-performance and the function of desktop computers cre¬
ate a compelling reason for companies to look at client/server
computing. This requires that a decision be made on the desktop
platform. The role of data processing professionals is to assist their
managements in making an optimal decision. The needs of every
corporation vary, but the approach to selecting the right choice is
the same: Understand the arguments on both sides, weigh their re¬
spective importance to the organization and make the decision. In
most companies with an investment in mainframes, OS/2 is the
platform of choice. ♦

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OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

World Wide OS/2 Developer Assistance —

IBM announced thgat it has enhanced the OS/2 Developer
Assistance program (DAP) to reach software developers around
the world who are interested in developing OS/2-based products.
Developers can apply for DAP membership by calling 407-982-
6408 to receive a sign-up form via fax, or by typing “GO OS2DAP’
on CompuServe and completing the electronic sign-up form. In ad¬
dition to current CompuServe support and country-specific
electronic services — such as IBMLink in the U.S. — IBM int
ends to use CompuServe as one of the primary worldwide distrib¬
ution sources for OS/2 product technical and marketing informa¬
tion.

IBM also announced that it will offer a beta version of OS/2 2.x
code, beta version of varous IBM OS/2 development tools and
programming technical information on a CD-ROM that is being dis¬
tributed in a pilot program. There will be a shipping and handling
fee for the CD-ROM. Installation support will be provided to pro¬
grammers via the CompuServe “OS2DEV’ forum, section 16 “DE¬
VELOPERS CD ROM.’ License for the code contained on the CD-
ROM expires December 15, 1992.

The CD-ROM contains: OS/2 2.x 32-bit graphics engine beta;
Windows 3.1 API support for win-OS/2; IBM developers toolkit for
OS/2 2.0; Beta version of an enhanced IBM WorkFrame/2; IBM C
Set/2 (latest Beta with VDD and new linker); profiler for C Set/2;
MMPM/2 plus toolkit; NTS/2 beta code; Netware Workstation kit
for OS/2 2.0; TCP/IP Ver 1.2.1 for OS/2; IBM OS/2 2.0 “Red
Books”; IBM OS/2 2.0 Technical Library; 26 productivity tools (IBM
employee-written software)

IBM, 1133 Westchester Ave., White Plains, NY 10604. Contact
Rob Crawley, 914-642-5364.

Automated Test Facility (ATF 2.0)

Softbridge announces automated test facility (ATF 2.0). ATF is a
software system designed for unattended testing of applications
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networked environments. ATF 2.0 provides powerful new features
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Softbridge, Inc., 125 Cambridge Pd Dr., Cambridge, MA 02140,
617-576-2257.

BenchTech for OS/2

BenchTech for OS/2 is a powerful performance measurement tool,
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BenchTech for OS/2 allows you to measure integer and floating
math performance, data movement and memory access. There are
three separate disk tests, and you control whether the program
uses the OS/2 system disk cache. The program allows you to de¬
termine relative video performance using any of eight video tests.
Three application oriented tests are included or you can specify
your own OS/2, DOS, or Windows test. Two higher level bench
mark tests are included for comparing systems. Twenty-five bench¬
mark tests are included in all.

Synetic Systems, 2210 Highway 6 & 50, Suite 204, Grand
Junction, CO 81505-9406, 303-241-1717.

FactslinkPRO

FactslinkPRO development system is a comprehensive interactive
voice/fax software package. It includes complete voice mail, fax
mail, auto attendant, fax retrieval, database interaction and order
entry capabilities in a single package. It runs with popular third-
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can have up to 60 voice lines, and up to 30 fax lines per computer.

Voice Link, Inc., 1840 Oak Ave., Evanston, IL 60201, 708-866-
0404.

CCC/Manager for OS/2 2.0

CCC/Manager for OS/2 2.0 is part of Softools’ CCC (Change and
Configuration Control) product family, which provides extensive
life cycle management functionality across all major platforms, in¬
cluding IBM, Digital, Unix and the PC. The product allows change
and version control for all software components, support for all
phases of life cycle, turnover and migration management, impact
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products.

Softool Corp., 340 S. Kellogg Ave., Goleta, CA 93117, 805-683-
5777.

Sizelt

Sizelt, a new MS-DOS software utility that enables users to quickly
and easily print ascii text files, using their printers built-in scalable
fonts. Through Sizelt’s menu driven interface, users select typeface,
pointsize, page orientation, margins, headersize and other page
layout and formatting options. This should be particularly interest¬
ing to Canon LPB-4 and LPB-8 printer users. However, many
spreadsheet database, and other more specialized software appli¬
cations still lack Canon support. Canon still has not yet delivered
an OS/2 printer driver. This utility supports drag and drop printing
now for plain text objects, allowing users to print ascii text any
way they like, under OS/2. Succinct is now beta testing support for

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

the HP III series.

Succinct Systems, Inc., PO Box 281, Norwich, VT 05055, 802-
649-5144.

OS/2 Compatible Tape Drives

Cristie, the data security company is launching two ranges of OS/2
compatible tape drives that can be connected by way of PC’s
Parallel printer port. This makes them easy to install and low cost
to share. The TS4000 OS/2 and TS5000 OS/2 ranges include units
with capacities from 60 M-bytes to 4.5 GBytes. It includes AT and
MCA adaptor cards as well as the parallel printer port option. Each
unit is provided with software to back up, restore and catalogue
individual or groups of files. This can be operated via icons under
Presentation Manager and is HPFS compatible.

Cristie Electronics Limited, Bonds Mill, Stonehouse, Glos.
GL103RG, United Kingdom (045 382) 3611.

PM/Focus

PM/Focus offers OS/2 application developers a rich graphical
toolset complete with file painter, forms painter, and Query Painter
to build even the most complex applications without writing code.
Application components such as databases, forms and procedures
are transformed into simple graphic objects that can be moved,
manipulated and activated with a point, click and drag of your

mouse. PM/Focus can take advantage of Information Builders’ new
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can have access to more than 50 relational and non-relational file
types on over 35 operating platforms.

A comprehensive set of list boxes, checkboxes, radio buttons,
type fonts and other graphical images allows you to create attrac¬
tive, intuitive applications user interfaces. PM/FOCUS OS/2
LANpak is available in 4, 16, 32 and larger user configurations.

Information Builders, Inc., 1250 Broadway, New York, NY
10001-3782, 212-736-4433.

SQA:Replay

SQA:Replay is a new utility that allows users to record every key¬
stroke, mouse movement and mouse click for playback at a later
time. It is able to work in either full-screen character mode or with
PM window, and no interference with user applications. Major re¬
play features include the automatic restoration of the desktop or¬
der before replay begins, variable speed playback, the ability to se¬
lectively pause during playback, and unattended playback. It is
upgradable to SQA:Robot, a full-featured test regression tool.
SQA:Replay scripts can be used by SQA:Robot. SQArReplay works
under version 1.3 and 2.0 of OS/2.

Software Quality Qutomation, 1 Parker St., Lawrence, MA
01843. ♦

= PERFORMANCE 2.0

"Go as fast as 32 bits will take you”

A Tuning Kit for OS/2 2.0

PERFORMANCE 2.0 is both an instructional booklet and
a diskette with a collection of program objects to help you tune your system.

THE BOOKLET - 60 pages - the best source for OS/2 Tuning Information.

BASIC section clearly describes a 32 bit, preemptive multitasking, multi-threading,
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THE DISKETTE - 25+ software OBJECTS - REXX source code included
These objects are designed to help you tune your system with SIMPLICITY.

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Buffers, Cache parameters, etc. Tools require some skills to operate.

ELIMINATORS are a reverse engineering of 0S/2's selective install allowing
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OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

INTRODUCING CONTAINERS

ADVANCED PM PROGRAMMING

Guy

SCHARF

GUY SCHARF is president of
Software Architects, Inc.,
2163 Jardin Drive, Mountain
View, CA 94040. Software
Architects, Inc. specializes
in OS/2 Presentation
Manager software develop¬
ment and consulting. Guy
can be reached on the
CompuServe 0S2DEV forum
or on CompuServe Mail at
76702,557 or through
Internet at 76702.557@com-
puserve.com.

Introducing Containers

OS/2 2.0 introduces four new controls: slider,
value set, notebook, and containers. This month
we will take a first look at containers.

First, what is a container? You have seen con¬
tainers lots of them. The container control is one
of the key components of the Workplace Shell. A
container displays to the user the items, or ob¬
jects, in contains in a visual way. Virtually every¬
thing you see on the OS/2 desktop before start¬
ing a program or opening a settings view is a
container.

If you open the drives folder, select a drive,
and open it, you will see a container showing
directories on the drive, arranged hierarchially.
This representation is called a tree view. Select
Open from the system menu again, press the
right arrow button, and you can open Settings,
Icon view, Tree view, and Details view. These
three views are all different ways a contain¬
er can display the directories and files on a
drive.

The container control supports five views of
its contents:

State Information

State Information Table
(1987 Almanac)

Population

State

Capitol

(1980 Census)

Alaska

Juneau

401,851

Arizona

Phoenix

2,718,425

Arkansas

Little Rock

2,286,-135

California

Sacramento

23,667,565

Colorado

Denver

2,889,735

Connecticut

Hartford

3,107,576

Delaware

Dover

594,317

Florida

Tallahassee

9,746,342

... .. c >1 CO i nr

Cancel

Figure 1

Icon View Icons or bitmaps with strings be¬
neath. The Workplace Shell desktop normal¬
ly displays objects this way.

Name View Icons or bitmaps with text to the
right.

Text View Text strings without any pictorial
representation.

Tree View Icons or bitmaps with text to the
right and with a way to display a hierarchy
(often indicated by + and - signs).

Details View Icons or bitmaps, text strings,
numbers, times, and/or dates.

Container windows support direct manipula¬
tion the user can select items with the mouse
and drag them around. The user can drag items
and drop them onto other containers, applica¬
tions, or windows.

It is the container control that gives OS/2 2.0
and the Workplace Shell much of its flavor.

A container may change the way in which its
contents are displayed by changing the view. In
the Workplace Shell, different views are typically
seen by opening windows with that alternate
view. It is possible to change the view within a
single window. Only one view can be displayed
in one container window' at a time.

A Step at a Time

As you might imagine, a control that performs all
of these functions and many more and shows
data in all of these views is complex. The docu¬
mentation is daunting. The CUA Library/2 manu¬
al has 34 pages describing the container control
and how it works and 74 pages of programming
reference material. The documentation for the
container control is larger than that for any of the
other new controls.

Here, we will cut the problem dowm to a sim¬
pler case we will use the details view of a con¬
tainer to build a multi column listbox with
scrolling, container and column titles, and other
bells and whistles. Programmers frequently need
multi-column listboxes for applications. While
you can use the owner-draw feature of the list-
box control to do that, the container with its de¬
tails view is easier and more powerful.

Figure 1 shows a dialog with a container de-

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

GUY SCHARF

tails view that is displayed by the sample
program. Look at some of its features that
you could not easily achieve in a list box:

• The container has a two-line, centered
heading that does not scroll. This head¬
ing is part of the container itself; it is not
static text outside of the container. A hor¬
izontal line is placed beneath the head¬
ing.

• The columns have headings too. Some of
the headings are left justified, some are
right justified. These headings also have a
horizontal separator line beneath them.

• The container has a vertical scroll bar.
The scroll bar does not extend to the
headings, indicating that the headings
stay fixed as you scroll the container ver¬
tically.

• The container has a vertical double line
between the first and second columns.
Grab the line with the mouse and you
can drag it left and right. This is called a
split bar. The split bar separates the con¬
tainer into two pieces, each of which is
individually scrolled horizontally. You
can adjust the split of the window into
two pieces by dragging the split bar.

If you scroll the container horizontally,
the column headings scroll too.

• The data in the columns is formatted.
Text strings are left-justified; numeric val¬
ues and dates have correct punctuation
as specified by the system settings and
are right-justified.

This looks complex, but is all pretty easy
to do. Let’s first look at the basics of pro¬
gramming a container.

Container Basics

The basic steps for programming a contain¬
er are the same as for other controls you are
familiar with. You must create the contain¬
er, load it with data, possibly monitor or
modify its operation, possibly retrieve data
from the container, and shut the container
down when you are done with it. However,
the container control requires more com¬
plex setup than older controls.

Creating a Container

As with other control, you create a contain¬
er by placing a CONTROL statement in a re¬
source script. WC_CONTAINER is the win¬
dow class name (CCL_CONTAINER if you
are using CUA Library/2). You can also cre¬
ate a container programmatically using Win-
Create Window.

In the sample program, the container is
in a dialog box. In the Workplace Shell dri¬
ve folders, the containers occupy the entire
window. That difference is a design choice.
For the sample program, I wanted the ap¬
pearance of a list box in a dialog.

The container control supports a small
set of style flags. We look here only at those
that apply to the details view.

CCS_READONLY makes the entire con¬
tainer read-only. If you don’t make the con¬
tainer read-only, the user can modify the
container title and container records. If you
want to modify some data, but not all, you
would omit this style and later mark con¬
tainer titles, records, column titles, or col¬
umn contents that are not to be changed as
read-only.

CCS_SINGLESEL specifies that only one
container item can be selected at a time.
CCS_MULTIPLESEL allows the user to select
zero or more items. Both of these are simi¬
lar to listbox styles. The container control
also has the CCS_EXTENDSEL style, which
allows the user to select one or more con¬
tainer items.

CCS_MINIRECORDCORE specifies that a
smaller record structure is to be used for
this container. Records are a*key concept of
containers. We examine them in the next
section.

Notice that the type of view was not
specified as a style, and other information is
not yet known either. You must initialize
the container programmatically using the
CM_SETCNRINFO message. We’ll look at
that later.

Understanding Container Items & Records

A container item is anything the user or
programmer might store in a container. The
container is really a very general purpose
object, and can hold many different types of
items. Car, truck, bicycle, and unicycle ob¬
jects could all be stored in the same con¬
tainer.

Programmatically, the data for each item
in the container is stored in a record. The

container control manages the records. The
programmer asks the control to allocate
memory for the records, fills in the fields of
the record, and tells the container to insert
the records in the container. When the con¬
tainer window is closed, the container frees
the memory for the records.

All records of a container must have the
same structure. There are two issues in de¬
termining the record format:

• Whether the full-sized record format
(RECORDCORE) or a small record format
(MINIRECORDCORE) should be used.

• How much additional space should be
included in each record for programmer-
maintained data.

The basic record structure (RECORD-
CORE or MINIRECORDCORE) has control
information used by the container to main¬
tain the records.

The MINIRECORDCORE structure con¬
tains only the minimum information neces¬
sary for a container item: a pointer to a
text string, a handle to an icon, a chain
pointer to the next record, the position of
the icon in an icon view, and some attribute
flags.

The larger RECORDCORE structure con¬
tains the above information plus more.
RECORDCORE supports different text
strings for text, name, and tree views.
RECORDCORE is the default data structure.
If you wish to use MINIRECORDCORE, you
must specify the CCS.MINIRECORDCORE
style when creating the container.

The information in these data structures
is sufficient to control the basic operation of
a container, but is usually not sufficient for
an application. Also, many of the items in
the structure are pointers to strings. Where
are the strings stored? If the strings are in
memory the programmer has allocated,
then that memory must remain allocated for
the life of the record. That may not be con¬
venient.

The container control allows you to ap¬
pend any information to the basic record
structure. When you ask the container to
allocate memory, you tell it how many
extra bytes you want allocated in each
record. The usual way to program this is to
declare a C struct. The first element of the
struct will be RECORDCORE or MINI-

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

INTRODUCING CONTAINERS

RECORDCORE. The following elements are
your data fields. For example:

typedef struct

MINIRECORDCORE RecordCore;

ULONG ulMyNumber;

CHAR szMyString[10l;

CD ATE cdate;

) USERRECORD, *PUSERRECORD;

You ask the container to allocate memo¬
ry for one or more records by sending a
CM_ALLOCRECORD message. To be more
efficient, allocate many records at the same
time.

Now, complete the record contents.
Assign values to elements in both the base
record structure and the extra bytes that fol¬
low the base structure.

After completing the records, you insert
them into the container by completing a
RECORD1NSERT structure and sending the
address of it and the first record allocated to
the container with a CM_INSERTRECORD
message.

When the container terminates, it will
free the memory it allocated for you.
However, if you used mallocO to obtain
any additional space while filling in the
records, the container cannot release that
space, since it does not know about it.
Instead, you will need to examine the
records, perhaps while processing the
WM_DESTROY message to the dialog, and
free any additional space you allocated.

You may remove or insert additional
records in the container at any time.

Container Columns

The details view shows several columns of
information. As you might expect, these
columns require additional control informa¬
tion so that the container can manage the
columns.

In a way similar to managing records,
you ask the container to allocate column
control structures with the CM_ALLOCDE-
TAILFIELDINFO message. You then com¬
plete the FIELDINFO data structures with
information about each column. Finally,
you construct a FIELDINFOINSERT structure
and insert the column information with a
CMJNSERTDETAILFIELDINFO message.

As with records, you can remove or in¬
sert additional columns at will.

Unlike container records, the container
does not allow you to add extra bytes to the
column control data. Instead, the FIELDIN¬
FO structure contains a pUserData field that
you can use to hold a pointer to your infor¬
mation.

Example Program

The example program constructs a details
view container that lists the states of the
Union, their capital cities, their population
according to the 1980 census, and the dates
they were admitted. The container can be
scrolled vertically and horizontally. A split
bar allows the user to adjust the amount of
space in which the state name is displayed.

The Resource Script

Let’s look first at the CNRDTL.RC file. As
usual, all strings that the user might see are
placed in a STRINGTABLE. No user-visible
text is allowed in the program code. All of
the strings are container or column head¬
ings. The \012 in the strings is a new-line
character, forcing that heading to be dis¬
played in two lines.

The dialog template contains a CON¬
TROL statement for a window of WC_CON-
TAINER class. The user may select only one
item at a time (CCS_SINGLESEL) and cannot
modify any data (CCS_READONLY). The
program uses the minimal record structure
(CCS_MINIRECORDCORE).

A PRESPARAMS statement follows to set
the font within the container to 8 point
Helvetica. A \0 is included at the end of the
font name string. This is required to make
PRESPARAMS work with OS/2.0. This extra
null is not required with OS/2 1.3.

The container control itself has no mar¬
gin surrounding it. This makes it especially
easy to use when the entire client area of a
window is occupied by a container. We
used the GROUPBOX statement to place a
margin around the container for appear¬
ance’s sake. This GROUPBOX statement
should follow the CONTROL statement for
the container itself.

Main Program

First, we define sample state data. Each
record has the state and capital names, pop¬
ulation, and date admitted.

Next we define the container record
structure, RECORD. The first element of this
structure must be MINIRECORDCORE (or

RECORDCORE if desired). We then add
three fields that represent the columns to be
displayed: a pointer to the capital name,
population of the state, and the date ad¬
mitted. We’ll examine the data types and
the following COLDESC data in the next
module.

The main program simply runs the ex¬
ample dialog and terminates; it is of little in¬
terest itself.

Finally, we come to the dialog proce¬
dure, ExampleDlgProcC). The dialog proce¬
dure for this program is extremely simple.
In WM_INITDLG, CnCreateDetailsViewQ
defines the columns of the details view and
InitContainer() loads the state data into the
container. In WM_COMMAND, we dismiss
the dialog when a button is pushed. In
WM_DESTROY,CnDestroyDetailsView()
frees memory allocated for the container.

Creating the Details View

CnCreateDetailsViewC) is a utility function
in CNFUNC.C to initialize the details view of
a container, based on control structures
passed to it. This function requires the num¬
ber of columns, a pointer to the column
control structure, the column the split bar is
to follow, the position of the split bar as a
percentage of the container width, the
STRINGTABLE id of the container heading,
and a handle to the resource module con¬
taining the STRINGTABLE.

The column information is the COLDESC
data in CNRDTL.C. The COLDESC data con¬
tains an offset to the data within the record,
column attribute flags, a STRINGTABLE id
for the column heading, an optional width
for the column, and an NULL pointer used
within CnCreateDetailsViewC).

The first thing CnCreateDetailsView does
is go through the table of column descrip¬
tions, load the column titles from the re¬
source file, and place pointers to the tide
text in the pszTitle field of the structure.

Next we initialize the container itself. We
clear the CNRINFO structure on the stack
and set the structure size in cb. We set the
container attributes field in
cnrinfo.flWindowAttr to CV_DETAIL (details
view), CA_DETAILSVIEWTITLES (we want
column titles), CA_CONTAINERTITLE (we
want a title area for the container itself),
and CA_TITLESEPARATOR (we want a hori¬
zontal line under the container title).

Then we load the container title from the

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

GUY SCHARF

resource file and place a pointer to it in cn-
rinfo.pszCnrTitle. The title contains a new-
line character (\012), which causes the title
to appear as two lines.

The CNRINFO structure contains a great
many fields. When we send the CM_SETCN-
RINFO structure to the container, we must
tell it what parts of the CNRINFO structure
should be examined. We tell it this with
CMA_* flags OR’ed together in mp2. In this
case, we say CMA_FLWINDOWATTR (set
window attributes) and CMA_CNRTITLE
(set the title text). Those are the only two
fields in CNRINFO that we filled in. If we
had completed other Fields, we would have
needed to specify other CMA_* values to
ask the container to pay attention to those
fields.

Now that we have established the con¬
tainer, we can define the columns. First, we
use the CM_ALLOCDETAILFIELDINFO mes¬
sage to ask the container to allocate the col¬
umn control structures for the number of
columns we need. The container returns to
us a pointer to the first FIELDINFO struc¬

ture. The other structures have been allocat¬
ed and chained to this structure. The struc¬
tures have been initialized as zero except
for the structure length and chain fields.

We now loop through the COLDESC ar¬
ray, filling in one FIELDINFO structure for
each COLDESC entry.

We copy the field offset and the attri¬
butes from COLDESC. These attributes are
key to the operation of the column. You
must specify the type of field this is. Details
view supports CFA_ULONG (offset is to a
ULONG), CFA_DATE (offset is to a CDATE
structure), CFA_TIME (offset is to a CTIME
structure), CFA.BITMAPORICON (offset is
to an HPOINTER), or CFA_STRING (offset is
to a PSZ, not to a CHAR array as the name
might suggest). We can specify the justifica¬
tion of the data (CFA_LEFT, CFA.RIGHT,
CFA_CENTER), vertical positioning of data
in the row (DT_VCENTER, DT_TOP,
DT_BOTTOM), and visual attributes
(CFA_HORZSEPARATOR for a separator be¬
low column headings, CFA_SEPARATOR for
a vertical separator to right of column,

CFAJNVISIBLE, CFA_FIREADONLY for a
read-only field, CFA_OWNERDRAW).

We don’t use any bitmaps or time values
in this sample. The CDATE and CTIME
structures are sets of three ULONG values.
The container will format them according to
the current system preference settings.

We copy the title attribute and mark the
title read-only. We use CFA_LEFT and
CFA_RIGHT on columns to left or right jus¬
tify the column headings. Since the contain¬
er has the CCS.READONLY style, CFA_FITI-
TLEREADONLY does not add anything. We
have no user data and set the column width
to 0. With a 0 width, the container will de¬
termine the width of the columns based on
the data to be displayed. We could have set
a width of our own choice if we wished to.

Setting the split bar requires modifying
the container setup information. It is not
part of the FIELDINFO information as such.
We need to set a pointer to the last FIELD¬
INFO that is left of the splitbar, and specify
the position of thesplitbar. To determine the
position, we get the dimensions of the con-

srl Ortal*
Harkev

P/P £s

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1-800-842-3636 Dept. Z1375 Publishing for Professionals Since IS4S

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

INTRODUCING CONTAINERS

tainer window and calculate the percent of
that width that was passed as a parameter.
We set the calculated x position and the
pointer to the last FIELDINFO in the CN-
RINFO structure. Finally, we send a
CM_SETCNRINFO message to the container,
specifying which fields we have set
(CMA.XVERTSPLITBAR for the location,
and CMA_PFIELDINFOLAST for the last col¬
umn to the left of the split bar).

Having completed all FIELDINFO struc¬
tures, we construct a FIELDINFOINSERT
structure, tell it how many structures we
want to insert, and insert the fields by send¬
ing CMJNSERTDETAILFIELDINFO.

Loading the Container

Now we are ready to load the container us¬
ing InitContainerO in CNRDTL.C. First, we
ask the container to create the records. The
number of extra bytes is the difference be¬
tween our RECORD size and the system’s
MINIRECORDCORESIZE. The container al¬
locates the requested records, initializing

them to zero except for the size and chain
fields.

All we need to do is to run the chain
and our array of state data, copying infor¬
mation into the RECORD structure. We
used the pszlcon field, which is the name
of the item, as a pointer to the state name.
We used the pszCapital name we created
for the capital city. We could have used our
own pointers for both. We could also have
added CHAR fields for these names in the
RECORD structure and copied the actual
strings in. However, if we had done that,
we would still have had to have PSZ val¬
ues, as the CFA_STRING must specify the
offset of a PSZ, not the beginning of a
string.

Next we create a RECORDINSERT struc¬
ture, give it the number of records, tell it
where to insert these records, and insert the
records with a CM_INSERTRECORD mes¬
sage.

We’re done. The container is now up
and running. Since this is a read-only dis¬

play container, we don’t have to do any¬
thing until the user terminates the dialog.

Shutting Down

While initializing the container and details
view, we allocated memory with malloc.
When the container closes, we need to free
that memory to prevent a memory leak.
Upon receipt of WM_DESTROY, the dialog
calls CnDestroyDetailsViewO. Here we free
the strings loaded from the resource file.
We read the CNRINFO data and free the
container title text that we allocated. Next
we free the column data and all records.

In this example, freeing the column data
and records is not required, as the container
will free that memory. However, if we had
been doing something else, such as switch¬
ing from a details view to a tree view, we
might have wanted to free the column data
before the container terminated.

Summary

There you have it a multi-column listbox
with titles, column headings, vertical splits,
and nice formatting. Later, we can add
many more features direct manipulation
(drag/drop), direct editing of column data,
and more.

The programs in this article are available
on the OS2DEV forum on CompuServe. GO
OS2DEV and download file CNRDTL.ZIP
from library 4, Ver 2.0.

MOVING?

PLEASE NOTIFY US
FOUR WEEKS IN
ADVANCE SO THAT YOU
DON’T MISS ANY
ISSUES OF
OS/2 MONTHLY ...
AND DON’T FORGET TO
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I Fax: (305) 892-8669

N L J

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

GUY SCHARF

LISTING 1. CNRDTL.C

// cnrdtl.c — Sample program to demonstrate container detail

MINIRECORDCORE RecordCore;
PSZ pszCapital;

ULQNG ulPopulation;

CDATE cdateAdmitted;

) RECORD, *PRECORD;

// MINIRECORDCORE structure
// Capital city
// Population
// Date admitted

//-

// cnrdtl.c

// Sample program to demonstrate container detail view

// By; Guy Scharf (415) 940-9186

// Software Architects, Inc. FAX: (415> 948-1620

// 2163 Jardin Drive

// Mountain View, CA 94040

// CompuServe; 76702,557

// Internet: 76702.557@compuserve.com

// Software Architects, Inc. develops software products for
// independent software vendors using OS/2 and Presentation
// Manager.

//-

COLDESC cdState[] -

(

{Of fsetof(RECORD, RecordCore.pszlcon), CFA_STRING I CFA_FIREADONLY

CFA_HORZSEPARATOR | CFA_LEFT, IDS_HEAD_STATE,

CFA_LEFT, 0, NULL},

{offsetof(RECORD, pszCapital), CFA_STRING | CFA_fIREADONLY |
CFA_HORZSEPARATOR | CFA_LEFT, IDS_HEAD_CAP,

CFA_LEFT, 0, NULL},

{offsetof(RECORD, ulPopulation), CFA_ULONG | CFA_FIREADONLY |
CFA_HORZSEPARAfOR | CFA_RIGHT, IDS_HEAD_POP,

CFA_RIGHT, 0, NULL},

{offsetof(RECORD, cdateAdmitted), CFA_DATE | CFA_FIREADONLY |
CFA_HORZSEPARATOR | CFA_RIGHT, IDS_HEAD_ADM,

CFA_RIGHT, 0, NULL}

};

// Prototypes of procedures

#define INCL_PM
#define INCL_BASE
♦include <OS2.H>

♦include <stdlib.h>
♦include <stddef.h>
♦include <string.h>

♦include "cnrdtl.h"
♦include "cnfunc.h"

// Sample data

// Basic OS/2 PM
// components

Static MRESULT EXPENTRY ExampleDlgProc (HWND, MSGID, MPARAM,

MPARAM) ,*

// C runtime library

// Container demo defs
// Container utilities

static MRESULT InitContainer
HWND hwndDlg,

USHORT idContainer,

USHORT estates,

PSTATEREC pastate);

// Initialize slider
//I - Dialog window
//I - Container id
//I - Number of states
//I - State data array

//-

// Main program to drive container example

//-

typedef struct

{

SHORT mm, dd, yy; // General date storage

} OURDATE, *POLJRDATE;

typedef struct
{

PSZ

pszState;

Name

of state

PSZ

pszCapital;

Name

of city

ULONG

ulPopulation;

'80 i

census population

OURDATE

ourdateAdm;

Date

admitted

STATEREC,

, *PSTATEREC;

int main (void)
{

HAB

hab;

Handle to anchor blk

HMQ

hmqMsgQueue;

Handle to msg queue

♦ifndef

OS220

HMODULE hmodContainer;

Handle to entr module

♦endif

hab

= Winlnitialize (0);

Initialize PM

hmqMsgQueue = WinCreateMsgQueue (hab, 0);// Create msg queue

STATEREC statedata[)

♦ifndef OS220

{

if (DosLoadModule (NULL, 0, CCL_CONTAINER_DLL,

{"Alabama",

"Montgomery",

3893888,

(12,

14,

, 1819}},

ShmodContainer))

{"Alaska",

"Juneau",

401851,

{ 1,

1959}),

return FALSE;

{"Arizona",

"Phoenix",

2718425,

{ 2,

1912}},

♦endif

{"Arkansas",

"Little Rock",

2286435,

{ 6,

15,

, 1836)},

{"California",

"Sacramento",

23667565,

{ 9 ,

, 1850}},

WinDlgBox (HWND_DESKTOP, HWND_DESKTOP,

ExampleDlgProc,

{"Colorado",

"Denver",

2889735,

{ 8,

. 1876}},

IDLG_EXAMPLE, NULL);

{"Connecticut",

"Hartford",

3107576,

{ 1,

• 9,

, 1788)),

{"Delaware",

"Dover",

594317,

(12,

■ 1787}),

♦ifndef OS220

("Florida",

"Tallahassee",

9746342,

{ 3,

, 1845}},

DosFreeModule (hmodContainer);

{"Georgia",

"Atlanta",

5463105,

{ 1,

. 1788)},

♦endif

{"Hawaii",

);

"Honolulu",

964691,

{ 8,

21,

, 1959)}

WinDestroyMsgQueue (hmqMsgQueue); //

WinTerminate (hab);

Shutdown

typedef struct

{

// Container

data record

return 0;

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

INTRODUCING CONTAINERS

// -

// ExampleDlgProc() - Show state info

// -

static MRESULT EXPENTRY ExampleDlgProc (

HWND hwndDlg,

MSGID msg,

MPARAM mpl,

MPARAM mp2)

{

switch(msg)

{

// -

// Initialize dialog by defining the details view
// in the container, loading records, etc.

//-

case WM_INITDLG:

CnCreateDetailsView (WinWindowFromlD (hwndDlg,

IDCN_STATEINFO),
sizeof cdState / sizeof (COLDESC),
cdState,

0 ,

33,

IDS_TITLE,

0 ) ;

//-

// Load the container

//---

InitContainer (hwndDlg, IDCN_STATEINFO,

sizeof statedata / sizeof (STATEREC),
statedata);

return 0;

//-

// Process pushbuttons. They both just quit dialog.
//-

case WM_COMMAND:

switch (SHORT1FROMMP(mpl))
i

// Cancel pressed
// Dismiss dialog

case DID_CANCEL:

WinDismissDlg (hwndDlg, FALSE);
return 0;

//OK button pressed
case DID_OK: // We're done

WinDismissDlg (hwndDlg, TRUE);
return 0;

)

return 0;

//-

// Recover memory allocated for the container
//-

case WM_DESTROY:

CnDestroyDetailsView (WinWindowFromlD (hwndDlg,

IDCN_STATEINFO),
sizeof cdState / sizeof (COLDESC),
cdState);

return 0;

//-

// All other messages go to default window procedure

// -

default:

return (WinDefDlgProc (hwndDlg, msg, mpl, mp2>);

return FALSE;

//-

// Function: InitContainer
// Outputs: none

// This function loads the container with all of the state data.
// See the article for a complete discussion of this function.

//-

static MRESULT InitContainer (
HWND hwndDlg,

USHORT idContainer,

USHORT estates,

PSTATEREC pastate)

(

USHORT i;

ULONG cbExtraBytes;

structure */

// Initialize slider
//I - Dialog window
//I - Container id
//I - Number of states
//I - State data array

// Loop counter
// Extra bytes in record

PRECORD precord;

PRECORD precordFirst;

// -> container records
// -> first container record

RECORDINSERT recordlnsert ;

// Record insertion control

//-

// Allocate memory for all user records

//-

cbExtraBytes = (ULONG)(sizeof(RECORD) -

sizeof(MINIRECORDCORE));

precord = (PRECORD) WinSendDlgltemMsg (hwndDlg, idContainer,
CM_ALLOCRECORD,

MPFROMLONG (cbExtraBytes),
MPFROMSHORT (estates));

precordFirst = precord;

//-

// Initialize all records

// -

for (1 = 0; i < estates; i++, pastate++)

{

//-

// Initialize the container record control structure

//-

precord->RecordCore.cb = sizeof (MINIRECORDCORE);

//-

// Copy our data to the container record control struct

//-

precord->RecordCore.pszIcon = pastate->pszState;
precord->pszCapital = pastate->pszCapital;

precord->ulPopulation = pastate->ulPopulation;

precord->cdateAdmitted.month = pastate->ourdateAdm.mm;
precord->cdateAdmitted.day = pastate->ourdateAdm.dd;
precord->cdateAdmitted.year = pastate->ourdateAdm.yy;

// Move to next record

precord * (PRECORD) precord->RecordCore.preccNextRecord;

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

GUY SCHARF

//-

// Construct record insertion control structure
//--

memset (&recordlnsert, 0, sizeof (RECORDINSERT));

recordlnsert.cb
recordlnsert.pRecordParent
recordlnsert.pRecordOrder

recordlnsert.zOrder
recordlnsert.cRecordsInsert
recordlnsert.fInvalidateRecord

-sizeof (RECORDINSERT);

= NULL;

- (PRECORDCORE)((ULONG)

MPFROMSHORT(CMA_END));

- (USHORT) CMA_TOP;

= estates;

- TRUE;

tt -

// Insert the records
it -

WinSendDlgltemMsg (hwndDlg, idContainer,
CM_INSERTRECORD,

MPFROMP (precordFirst),
MPFROMP (firecordlnsert));

//---

// Return to caller
tt -

return 0;

LISTING 2. CNFUNC.C

if (WinLoadString (hab, hmod, usStringID, MAXMSGSIZE,
pszBuf) == 0)

{

free (pszBuf);
return (NULL);

}

return (pszBuf); // Return -> string

)

//-

t / CnCreateDetailsView

It Create the details view of the container. This requires

ft setting up the column information.

tt -

USHORT

CnCreateDetailsView (

Create details view

HWND

hwndContainer,

I - container window

USHORT

cColumns,

I - Number of colums

COLDESC

acd(],

IO->column descriptor

SHORT

sLastLeftColumn,

I - Last column in

left split window

-1 means no split

LONG

IPetSplitBarPos,

Percent of entr width

to set split bar

USHORT

idTitle,

I - container hdg id

HMODULE

hmod)

I -hmod for resources

USHORT i;

Loop counter

// cnfunc.c - Container utility functions

// -

ft cnfunc.c

it Container utility functions

tt -

CNRINFO

enrinfo;

Cntr info structure

PFIELDINFO

pFieldlnfoHead;

-> First field

PFIELDINFO

pFieldlnfo;

-> Current field

FIELDINFOINSERT FieldlnsertInfo;

PCOLDESC

ped;

Column descriptor

//-

ft Get container text information
ft -

#define INCL_WIN
♦include <os2.h>

♦include <stdlib.h>
♦include <string.h>

♦include "enfunc.h"

for (ped - acd, i - 0

{

if (pcd->pszTitle
pcd->pszTitle

)

i < cColumns; i++, pcd++)

“ NULL)

- UtilLoadString (pcd->idTitle,

WinQueryAnchorBlock (hwndContainer),
hmod);

♦define MAXMSGSIZE 255

ft Max size of string

tt -

It UtilLoadString - load a string from the resource file

// -

tt -

t/ Initialize the container for a simple details view

// -

memset (Scnrinfo, 0/ sizeof(CNRINFO));
cnrinfo.cb = sizeof (CNRINFO);

PSZ UtilLoadString ( ft

USHORT usStringID, ft

HAB hab, tt

HMODULE hmod) //

PSZ pszBuf; //

pszBuf = malloc (MAXMSGSIZE);

Load string from res
I - String identifier
I - Current HAB
I - Resource module or NULL

String buffer

tt Set for Details View, with column titles, with icons and
tt not bitmaps, include a container title, with a separator
tt bar underneath it, and don't let the user change title
enrinfo.flWindowAttr - CV_DETAIL |

CA_DETAILSVIEWTITLES |
CA_CONTAINERTITLE |

CAJTITLESEPARATOR;

OS/2 Monthiy • December 1992

INTRODUCING CONTAINERS

cnrinfo.pszCnrTitle = UtilLoadString (idTitle,

WinQueryAnchorBlock (hwndContainer),
hmod);

WinSendMsg (hwndContainer, CM_SETCNRINFO,

MPFROMP (scnrinfo),

MPFROMLONG (CMA_FLWINDOWATTR | CMA_CNRTITLE));

//-

WinSendMsg (hwndContainer, CM_INSERTDETAILFIELDINFO,
MPFROMP (pFieldlnfoHead),

MPFROMP (SFieldlnsertInfo));

return 0;

)

//-

// Get memory for the column information
//-

pFieldlnfoHead = (PFIELDINFO) PVOIDFROMMR (

WinSendMsg (hwndContainer,

CM_ALLOCDETAILFIELDINFO,
MPFROMSHORT (cColumns),
0 ) ) ?

pFieldlnfo - pFieldlnfoHead; // Start at top of list

// -

// Load the field info structures
U -

for (pcd « acd, i * 0;

(

pFieldInfo->cb
pFieldlnfo->fIData
pFieldInfo->flTitle
pFieldInfo->pTitleData
pFieldlnfo->offStruct
pFieldInfo->pUserData
pFieldInfo->cxWidth

i < cColumns; i++, pcd++)

sizeof (FIELDINFO);
pcd->f1Attributes;
pcd->flTitle;
pcd->pszTitle;
pcd->offField;

NULL;

pcd->cxWidth;

if (sLastLeftColumn >= 0)

{

if (sLastLeftColumn == i)

{

SWP swp;

WinQueryWindowPos (hwndContainer, &swp);
cnrinfo.pFieldlnfoLast - pFieldlnfo;
cnrinfo.xVertSplitbar *

(swp.cx * IPetSplitBarPos) / 100;
WinSendMsg (hwndContainer, CM_SETCNRINFO,

MPFROMP (scnrinfo),

MPFROMLONG (CMA_PFIELDINFOLAST |
CMA_XVERTSPLITBAR));

}

pFieldlnfo * pFieldInfo->pNextFieldInfo;

//-

// CnDestroyDetailsView

// Destroy the details view of the container. This

(/ requires freeing column information.

//-

USHORT CnDestroyDetailsView (

Destroy details view

HWND hwndContainer,

I - Handle to cntr window

USHORT cColumns,

I - Number of colums

COLDESC acd(])

IO—> column descriptor

USHORT

Loop counter

PCOLDESC

pcd;

Column descriptor entry

CNRINFO

cnrinfo;

Container info structure

//-

// Remove any column titles loaded into memory

//-

for (pcd *= acd, i * 0; i < cColumns; i++, pcd++)

(

if ( (pcd->pszTitle !- NULL)

&& (pcd->idTitle != 0) )

free (pcd->pszTitle);
pcd->pszTitle = NULL;

}

//-

f / Remove the column heading from memory

//---

WinSendMsg (hwndContainer,

CM_QUERYCNRINFO,

MPFROMP(Scnrinfo),

MPFROMSHORT (sizeof(CNRINFO)));

//-

// Construct the FIELDINFOINSERT structure that describes
// the number of fields to be inserted, where they are to
// be inserted, etc.

//-

free (cnrinfo.pszCnrTitle);

H -

If Remove the column information of the container

//-

memset (&FieldInsertInfo, 0, sizeof(FIELDINFOINSERT));
Fieldlnsertlnfo.cb =*= sizeof (FIELDINFOINSERT);

Fieldlnsertlnfo.pFieldlnfoOrder = (PFIELDINFO) CMA_END;
Fieldlnsertlnfo.cFieldlnfoInsert « cColumns;

Fieldlnsertlnfo.fInvalidateFieldlnfo » TRUE;

WinSendMsg (hwndContainer,

CM_REMOVEDETAILFIELDINFO,

0 ,

MPFROM2SHORT (0, CMA_FREE));

//-

// Insert the fields.

//-

t/ Remove any records in the container
//-

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

GUY SCHARF

WinSendMsg (hwndContainer,

CM_REMOVERECORD,

0 ,

MPFROM2SHORT (0, CMA_FREE))

return 0;

LISTING 3. CNRDTL.H

// cnrdtl.h — Definitions for cnrdtl demo

//-

// Change the following as required for target system

ft -

♦define OS220
//♦define OS2I3

♦ifdef OS220

♦define MSGID ULONG
♦else

♦define MSGID USHOR
♦include <fclcnrp.h>

// Define target system
// OS/2 1.3 + CUA Lib/2

// OS/2 2.0

// OS/2 1.3
// CUA Library/2

♦define WC_CONTAINER

CCL_CONTAINER // Window class

BEGIN

♦endif

IDS_HEAD_STATE,

"\Q12State"

IDS_HEAD_CAP,

"\012Capital"

// Defines for dialogs.

controls

IDS_HEAD_POP,

"Population\012(1980 Census)"

♦define

IDLG_EXAMPLE

100

IDS_HEAD_ADM,

"Entered\012Union"

♦define

IDCN_STATEINFO

200

IDS_TITLE,

"State Information Table\012(1987 Almanac)"

♦define

IDS_HEAD_STATE

500

END

♦define

ID S_HEAD_CAP

501

♦define

IDS_HEAD_POP

502

DLGTEMPLATE IDLG_

EXAMPLE LOADONCALL MOVEABLE DISCARDABLE

♦define

IDS_HEAD_ADM

503

BEGIN

♦define

IDS_TITLE

504

DIALOG "State

Information", IDLG_EXAMPLE, 40, 27, 200, 150,

LISTING 4. CNFUNC.H

// cnfunc.h — Container utility functions

//-

// cnfunc.h

// Container Functions

//-

li¬

//-

Data structure used to describe field information

typedef struct

Field (column) descriptors

{

ULONG

of fField;

Offset of field in record

♦ Make File Creation run in

♦ D:\P\MAGAZINE\CNRDTL;

ULONG

flAttributes;

Field attributes

USHORT

idTitle;

Identifier of column title

.SUFFIXES:

ULONG

flTitle;

Title Attributes

USHORT

cxWidth;

Column width (0 = auto calc)

.SUFFIXES: .c .rc

PSZ

pszTitle;

Pointer to column title text

} COLDESC,

♦PCOLDESC;-

ALL: CNRDTL.EXE \

CNRDTL.RES

// Function prototypes
//-

USHORT CnCreateDetailsView (
HWND hwndContainer,

USHORT cColumns,

COLDESC acd[],

SHORT sLastLeftColumn,

LONG lPctSplitBarPos,
USHORT idTitle,

HMODULE hmod);

USHORT CnDestroyDetailsView (
HWND hwndContainer,

USHORT cColumns,

COLDESC acd[]);

LISTING 5. CNRDTL.RC

♦include <os2.h>
♦include "cnrdtl.h"

// Create details view

//I - Handle to container window

//I - Number of colums

// 10—> column descriptor

//I - Last column in left split

// Percent of container width

//I - container heading id

// I - handle to resource file

// Destroy details view

//I - Handle to container window

//I - Number of colums

// IO—> column descriptor

// OS/2 definitions
// Application defs

STRINGTABLE

WS_VISIBLE, FCF_SYSMENU | FCF_TITLEBAR

BEGIN

CONTROL IDCN_STATEINFO,

20, 31, 160, 110, WC_CONTAINER,

CCS_SINGLESEL | CCS_READONLY |
CCS_MINIRECORDCORE |

WS_GROUP | WS_TABSTOP | WS_VISIBLE
PRESPARAMS PP_FONTNAMESIZE,"8.Helv\0"

GROUPBOX

300, 19, 30, 162, 116

DEFPUSHBUTTON "OK", DID_OK, 15, 9, 48, 13, WS_GROUP

PUSHBUTTON "Cancel", DID_CANCEL, 78, 9, 48, 13,

NOT WS_TABSTOP

END

LISTING 6. CNRDTL.MAK

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

INTRODUCING CONTAINERS

cnrdtl.exe: \

CNFUNC.OBJ \

CNRDTL.OBJ \

# Make File Creation run in directory:

CNRDTL.RES \

# D:\P\MAGAZINE\CNRDTL;

CNRDTL.MAK

@REM @<<CNRDTL.@0

# Assumed INCLUDE environment variable path:

/CO /M /NOL /PM:PM +

# C:\TOOLKT20\C\OS2H?

CNFUNC.OBJ +

# C:\TOOLKT20\ASM\OS2INC;

CNRDTL.OBJ

# C:\IBMC\INCLUDE;

cnrdtl.exe

# E:\GPF\INCLUDE;

CNRDTL.RES: CNRDTL.RC \

# {.;$ (INCLUDE) )OS2.H V

LINK386.EXE @CNRDTL.@0

{.,•${ INCLUDE)) CNRDTL. H \

RC CNRDTL.RES cnrdtl.exe

# {.;$(INCLUDE)JFCLCNRP.H \

CNRDTL.MAK

{.}.rc.res:

RC -r .\$ *.RC

CNFUNC.OBJ: CNFUNC.C \

# {$(INCLUDE);)os2.h \

{.}.c.obj:

# {$(INCLUDE);)stdlib.h \

ICC.EXE /Ss /Kbger /Ti /W2 /C .\$*.c

# {$(INCLUDE);}string.h \

{.;$(INCLUDE);)cnfunc.h \

Jinclude CNRDTL.DEP

CNRDTL.MAK

CNRDTL.OBJ: CNRDTL.C \

# {$(INCLUDE);)os2.h \

LISTING 7. CNRDTL.DEP

# {$(INCLUDE);)stdlib.h \

# ($(INCLUDE);}s tdde f.h \

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Variable Data Compression, Printed and On-Line Documentation.
Backup/Restore to Floppies and QIC-40/80 floppy Tape Drives!
Incremental Backups: Wildcards, Time/Date, & Graphical Selection
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Unattended / Delayed Operation..

Runs Transparently in the Background.

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OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

PAINT BY NUMBERS

THE ULTIMATE OS/2 GAME

Timur

Tabi

Timur Tabi can be
reached at 2 Lloyd Haven
Drive; Huntington, NY 11743.
Source code is available on
the OS/2 Shareware BBS,
703-385-4325.

I love writing this column. Not only do I look
forward to actually playing this game once it’s
done, but I like contributing to something in
which I strongly believe, and I really do believe
that OS/2 is the wave of the future.

Time constraints have prevented me from
adding as much as I promised last month. The
only new enhancements you will find are the im¬
plementation of dialog boxes for the “Map”
menu items. Do not underestimate the amount of
work required to support these features, howev¬
er. A whole module was added for the load and
save routines. The basic skeleton of the code
comes from Petzold’s book, an antiquated yet
still valuable resource.

The dialog boxes themselves are created with
the Dialog Box Editor that comes with the tool
kit. The editor creates a .dig, a .res, and a .h file.
The .dig file contains the resource script com¬
mands that define the dialog boxes. The .res file
is a compiled version of the .dig file.

There are a few things that should be kept in
mind. First, do not include .res file as a module

in the make file because the resource compiler
(rc) cannot combine individual resources. Every
time rc links a resource file into the executable, it
replaces the existing resources with those in the
.res file. If you want to include several types of
resources, then you must create a master re¬
source script file which contains “rcinclude”
statements. This process will create a single .res
file containing all your resources.

Secondly, beware of errors in the online help
for the tool kit. The only way to be certain of the
information is to check the header files. An ex¬
ample is the structure definition for FILEFIND-
BUF3. Compare this with the entry in bsedos.h
and you will see what I mean.

Last of all, double-check all the parameters
when using code designed for OS/2 1.x. Most of
the 16-bit integer parameters are now 32 bits
long. Note that there is no speed difference be¬
tween short and long integers on a true 386/486
system, since the 32-bit wide data bus can swal¬
low both sizes in one gulp.

Look at the file game.rc, which is the master
resource file for this project. It includes the
dialog.dig file that the editor creates. Note
that both files include dialog.h - the header
file also created by the dialog editor. 1 am
not sure why this is necessary, but hopefully
an explanation will present itself in due time.

The dialog box for loading and saving
files follows a convention that exists in most
applications. The two list-boxes show a list
of directories and a list of files in the current
directory and an entry field allows you to
type in a file or path name. Selecting a file
from the list-box places that name in the en¬
try field automatically. Once you have select¬
ed a file, click on “Save” to save the current
map to that file, or click on “Load” to load
that file. The current implementation is not
100% complete. The load and save option
should not be combined, and there is no
check for overwriting an existing file. These
changes will be available in the next install¬
ment.

The code for controlling both list-boxes is
in the file files.c, which will eventually be¬
come a module of generic file I/O routines.
The fill-functions for the list-boxes are very
similar. Any existing entries are erased and

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

TIMUR TABI

the new entries are determined by scanning
the current drive and directory. You may
notice that the list-boxes are extra wide.
This allows most HPFS long filenames to be
displayed in their entirety. I only wish that
my other applications worked the same
way. As with everything else in this project,
the dimensions of the dialog box can be
changed with the editor to suit your prefer¬
ences. Those of you with high resolution
monitors and tiny system fonts will proba¬
bly want to increase the size even further.

Notice that the DosFindFirst/Next func¬
tions ignore any extended attributes. The
map files will eventually be given a file type
(a.k.a. association) that will distinguish
them from other files without needing a
special extension. The short-term goal of
this project is to bring the game up and run¬
ning as quickly as possible, so that no one
has to wait until 1994 before he can play.
Note that I did not say 1993. Sorry folks, but
this thing will not be done before Christmas
— it should be ready by spring.

My roommate Scott and I got into a dis¬

cussion over the importance and design of
a user interface. We ended up agreeing on
almost everything, but the differences be¬
tween the programmer (me) and the user
(Scott) became very apparent. Scott argued
that the UI should be designed and coded
at the same time as the rest of the program.
His concern was that leaving the interface
until later would cause inconsistencies be¬
tween the interface and the application. I
had to agree with him on this point, but I
also had to mention that trying to create
both at the same time causes most program¬
mers to bite off more than they can chew.

Frankly, I think that attempting to fully
design an application, interface and all, be¬
fore any coding is started is a pipe dream
that only works with software devoid of
creativity. Remember, this game cannot be
designed beforehand because it is a group
project. New ideas and changes occur con¬
stantly, so the primary goal for the present
is not to design a complete user interface,
but rather a flexible one. What does that
mean, you ask? It means that the applica¬

tion should not be designed with only one
“look-and-feel” in mind.

In other words, there is more than one
way to skin a cat, just as there is more than
one way to create a playing field. Pull-down
menus allowed me to create a map editor
which worked without wasting too much
time on the code. Had I taken the time to
create something more sophisticated, it
would have been vastly more time-consum¬
ing to modify the more complicated code.
And that is only the short-term problem. In
the long run, we would probably end up
with a user interface which no longer suited
the task at hand. Therefore, our approach
will be to formulate an interface which ex¬
pands along with each new feature.

This, in a nutshell, is my philosophy on
user interface design. I will be very happy
to entertain any comments on the subject.
Scott, by the way, is responsible for the
new icon, which is much better than the
one I designed. If anyone thinks he or she
can do a better job, feel free to submit your
creativity. ♦

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OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

BUILDING PROGRAMS

OBJECT OBJECTIVE

David

Moskowitz

David Moskowitz is
president of Productivity
Solutions, 164 Avondale
Road, Norristown PA
19403-2952. The consulting
firm specializes in OS/2 and
object oriented develop¬
ment He is the author of
Converting Applications to
OS/2, Brady Books, * 1989,
and the forthcoming revi¬
sion. He can be reached on
CompuServe at 76701,100, on
MClMail at 341-4084.

If you’ve read the past articles in this series, you
know we’ve devoted lots of space to a discus¬
sion about what an object is and why it makes
sense to consider changing your development
model to use an object-oriented approach. We’ve
discussed the need to develop a different mind¬
set for object-oriented development compared to
classic procedural development. In addition,
we’ve talked about OOP being an iterative
process. There are a couple of conclusions that
might not be obvious if you take these ideas to
their extremes.

When we build object-oriented programs,
very often we aren’t really building programs,
per se. Instead, we define objects and build the
functionality of the completed program by ar¬
ranging for objects to collaborate with each oth¬
er. In an object-oriented development environ¬
ment, rather than think about the final
completed program, we concentrate first on
building objects that can be re-used. Ap¬
plications are really objects combined to pro¬
duce results.

In procedural code, we build applications out
of cooperating functions. We use that knowledge
when we design and build systems. For example,
we know the calling conventions of the public
functions. Sometimes, we might even know
something about the data structures used by the
functions. (It is interesting that ever since David
Parnas’s article “On The Criteria to bei Used in
Decomposing Systems into Modules,” appeared
in the Communications of the ACM in December
1972, we’ve had formal “proof” about the prob¬
lems associated with an approach to develop¬
ment that ignQres hiding implementation details.
If you look at code, today, you can still see glob¬
al data, etc).

Object oriented design

We build object-oriented applications out of col¬
laborating objects. Each object has its own set of
responsibilities. The object’s responsibilities are
encapsulated with the class definition. Each ob¬
ject has a defined set of behaviors. Further, the
only thing one object “knows” about another
object is the operations that the other object can
be requested to perform.

To put it another way, an object only knows
about the messages it can send to other objects.

Messages are requests that an object respond.
The requesting object does not know, nor does it
care how the request is handled.

The published list of operations defines the
responsibilities of a class of objects. As we de¬
sign object-oriented applications, our first step is
to identify the objects. As we identify objects,
we also have to define the responsibilities or
behaviors.

During the early stages of object-oriented de¬
sign, we are less concerned about “how” any
particular class of object will behave. Instead we
concentrate on “what” the object does.

This level of abstraction is important. During
the initial stages, we are not concerned with the
internal logic that defines “how” the object be¬
haves. Instead we concentrate on a definition of
what the object can do, what responsibilities the
object has and what services it may require from
other objects.

Once we’ve identified an object, we decide
what behavior other objects will require of this
object (its responsibilities). The actual logic or in¬
ternal behavior encapsulated (or hidden) within
the object, itself. The process of object-oriented
design is, in part, based upon the difference be¬
tween the public information about the behavior
of the object and the internal private logic that
makes it work.

Basically, object-oriented design means we
have three tasks. First, we have to identify the
objects. Fundamentally, this can be viewed as an
English exercise. Find the nouns or noun phras¬
es in the specification and assume that as a start¬
ing point for object recognition. (We group the
objects by similarities and differences that this
helps us identify classes.)

Once we have the list of object candidates, we
turn our attention to object behavior. We use the
behavior of the objects to build the conceptual
model of the application. It is the object’s behav¬
ior that we map to become the responsibilities of
the object. We ask ourselves, “What steps, ac¬
tions, or results does this object produce?” Notice,
this is a “what” question, not a “how” question.

After we’ve identified the objects, and respon¬
sibilities, we begin to ask which objects handle
which tasks. Which other objects are necessary
to complete the given, “Assignment?”

A line from an old Jefferson Starship song was

OS/2 Monthly • December 1 992

DAVID MOSKOWITZ

true about people and true about objects, “No man is an island,
he's a peninsula.” No one object will provide all the responsibili¬
ties necessary to completely map a complex application. Objects
collaborate with each other; or, if you will, they delegate responsi¬
bilities to other objects.

So, the next phase of object-oriented design is to identify what
this object needs from other objects, and which other objects (or
collaborators) must be part of the system.

In effect, we define the public interface that “documents” the
responsibilities this object accepts. Based upon this knowledge, we
can select other objects to collaborate with this object to accom¬
plish a specific function.

CRC

There is a name given to this approach of object-oriented design
— CRC cards. CRC cards are standard lined index cards (either 3
by 5 or 4 by 6 depending upon how small you write, or how much
you want to put on a card). CRC stands for Class, Responsibilities,
and Collaborations.

Draw a line about one-third the horizontal distance from the
right (on a 4 by 6 card, draw a line 4 inches from the left side). Put
the name of the class on the top line of the left hand side of the
card. Use the left hand two thirds for the responsibilities of the
class (and object members of the class). In the right third, place the
collaborating classes (or objects).

That's it — one class per card. It doesn’t make any difference
how many cards you have. It is better to have too many classes
than two few; it is easier to prune things you don’t need than it is
to add things you’ve forgotten.

If something comes up either in discussions with co- workers
on during your own work with the problem, you can always add
a class. (CRC cards can be passed around a small implementation
group for comment, review, etc.) Similarly, you can discard cards
that no longer seem appropriate in whatever new context evolves
as you work.

Don't just stand there....

Once you have a start on design, begin to implement the classes.
Don’t wait until the design is completed before you start imple¬
mentation (i.e., building objects). Object-oriented development en¬
courages the design a little code a little approach. The only way
you’ll get comfortable with the methodology is to use it.

Object oriented development also allows us to make mistakes.
We always learn more about a system as we play with it. We al¬
ways see things we could have improved or will improve next
time. Object-oriented development is the way around the old clas¬
sic way to create systems — “Build the whole, thing, push it off a
cliff, watch it crash, and start all over.” (I’ve heard this referred to
as the Wright Brothers approach. However, Orville and Wilbur
didn’t do that.)

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OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

The development loop

The key point about object-oriented development is that it does
not progress in neat, nicely-bound stages. It is an iterative process.
If you discover you need a new object, add it. If you picked an in¬
correct object, discard it. If you didn’t get it exactly right, change
it.

Object-oriented development supports change in a way that is
very different from classic structured programming. Object-orient¬
ed development encourages change as we learn more about the
system and its needs. Using structured programming, we had to
specifically design change points into the code. We had to docu¬
ment all the interactions (well, that was the idea, on a large project
(i.e., more than three to five people) trying to document the de¬
pendencies either never happened, was incomplete, or wasn’t kept
up to date).

Using an object-oriented approach to design empowers us to
make mistakes, to make changes, to start with something that
works and grows, to learn more about the system as we build it.
This is the real power of object-oriented development. As we de¬
sign object-oriented systems, we use the inherent isolation of each
object to our advantage. Since the only thing published about an
object is what it does, we are free to change the internal represen¬
tations, fix bugs and extend the objects’ capabilities without any
risk of introducing bugs in other parts of the system because of in¬
teraction. In fact, it is this lack of side effects of changes that is an¬
other way of describing object re-use.

Client-Server revisited

One last point, when we talk about collaboration in the object-ori¬
ented world, we aren’t talking about anything new or totally
unique to OOP. For over three years, we’ve been telling develop¬
ers to use the client-server model to build single user OS/2 appli¬
cations.

The usual context for the discussions revolved around the use
of OS/2 dynamic link libraries (DLLs). The object, was to recognize
that at any point in time, any given DLL could be a server to one
section of code and a client of another. A DLL isn’t always intend¬
ed to be a “server” or a “client.” Instead, client and server are roles
that dynamically change while the program runs.

In an object-oriented world, we still use the client server con¬
cept. A collaborating object may be a server to the requesting ob¬
ject. At the same time, it can be a client to a third object. We don’t
have to assign a DLL to be either a client or a server. However, the
relationship between client and server is important.

If it proves helpful, you can visualize client-server as if a net¬
work is involved. The client makes a request of the server, over
the network. The client cannot get access to anything the server
doesn’t explicitly send to him since the two are running in two
separate computers. You can think of object collaboration in this
way, whether or not a network is involved.

Coming attractions

Next month we’ll take look at design a bit more. In addition, we’ll
also begin to talk about picking object-oriented tools and lan¬
guages.

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OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

IN THE TRENCHES

T o NT, or not NT, that is the ques¬
tion. .. Whether ’tis nobler to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous
propaganda.... When I hear people talk
about Microsoft’s NT operating system, my
first response is “What new technology?”.
NT is based largely on the Mach kernal, and
having OS/2 source code taught the boys
from Redmond a lot. Oh, sure, there’s some
neat new file system stuff, but to hear it tell
from the Windows bigots, NT is a revolu¬
tion that is so much better than anything
else out there. I guess these guys have nev¬
er heard of Unix.

But the really amazing part of all this is
how these guys compare NT’s proposed
features with what OS/2 has now. I have
news for all those who wait with baited
breath for NT. It’s going to be late. Like
2Q93 late (although the ‘Softies are proba¬
bly aiming for Spring COMDEX in May).

How concerned is MS about bugs and
problems? Well, they’re even thinking of
calling the OS Windows NT 3.1. Now I
don’t know about you, but anyone who
would be taken in by such a stupid ploy
deserves what they get. Like the fact that
there are whole classes of software that will
not work under NT (those that access the
hardware directly).

NT was originally designed as a server
OS, which is why the security issue is so
important. People expecting to run all their
DOS apps without changes are going to be
in for a rude shock. Further, NT’s micro-ker-
nal approach is less speedy that a tradition¬
al OS like OS/2. Of course, MS wants you
to run NT on fast CPUs anyway, like RISC
machines. OS/2’s superior DOS compatibili¬
ty is a strong reason why it is so popular.
NT’s DOS compatibility will be weaker, thus
hurting its chances in the retail channel.

Windows bigots do not understand that
the competition for OS/2 2.0 is not NT, it is
DOS/Windows. MS does not plan to put NT
on every desktop (not every machine has
the oomph for NT). And IBM does plan to
make their own microkernel based version
of OS/2 (called Portable OS/2). And unlike
MS, IBM is using its existing software and
expertise (in conjunction with Carnegie
Mellon University) to provide a new prod¬
uct. MS wants to re-invent the wheel, it

seems. Most likely Portable OS/2 will be
merged with IBM’s AIX (Unix-based) prod¬
uct. Look for an announcement on this at
Fall COMDEX.

Consider the Win32 and Win32s APIs.
Why are so many rushing to develop for
NT, which hasn’t proved it can sell worth a
damn? To take advantage of NT, you have
to make a program that runs only on it. If
you make a 32 bit Win32s program to be
compatible with Win 3.1, it will be creamed
on NT by its feature-rich competitors. I
think these developers are being suckered
into making software for an unproven mar¬
ket so MS can hype up NT applications
availability.

Me, I believe you should develop for ex¬
isting markets fist, then developing markets

second. Right now, with over a million
copies of OS/2 being sold, this is where the
action currently is. And if porting to NT is
as easy as they say, it makes sense to wait
until NT takes off (assuming it does).

But there is an even more crucial prob¬
lem facing Microsoft and NT: the issue of
support. If NT is to be a server OS, and is
to make it in the Fortune 500 world, it will
have to provide support. This means 24
hour a day, worldwide support for its prod¬
uct. And frankly, MS doesn’t have the
oomph to do it. One thing abut IBM’s
bloated bureaucracy, there is an office al¬
most everywhere you go.

I think NT will find some acceptance,
but it will never achieve the market pene¬
tration that OS/2 does. New users of 486
machines might go for it. And of course,
the die-hard Windows bigots. But to listen
to the Windows crowd, they seem to think
that NT will make OS/2 dry up and go
away. Sorry, Bill.

By the time NT ships, OS/2 will have
had a lot of bug-fixing and cleaning up, as
well as the necessary drivers (about time!)
for video cards and other peripherals.
Further, there will be a host of 32 bit OS/2
apps from companies like Lotus, Borland,
and WordPerfect. When NT does hit the
streets, their users will have to go through
the same painful process of waiting for bug
fixes, applications and so on that we OS/2
users have had to put up with. By the time
the end of 1993 rolls around, NT will have
finally started to pick up steam. But OS/2
will have had over a year long head start.

Finally, it’s easy to show the advantages
of 32 bit OS/2 vs 16 bit Windows to users.
Try selling an end user on the idea of hav¬
ing C2 security. This is something for LAN
administrators.

Now, I’m not saying NT will be a disas¬
ter. It will have its place, just as OS/2 and
Windows 3-1 will. But for now and the
foreseeable future, the OS of choice will
continue to be DOS for the majority of
users. New users with powerful machines
will probably not choose a DOS-only plat¬
form, but there are still a lot of 286 and XT
boxes out there. Eventually, though, I be¬
lieve OS/2 will grab a larger market share
that Windows (whatever flavor). Of course,
this assumes that IBM actually wakes up
and listens to its customers about how to
market and improve its product. If not,
well, the game

Eric Pinnel

OS/2 Monthly • December 1992

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® Flexible. Open architecture for custom C/C++ coding.
® Portable. Port across Windows, OS/2, Motif and Mac.

(415) 593-3200

Phone

(415) 595-8158
FAX

« GUILD

PRODUCTS INCORPORATED

1301 Shoreway Road, Belmont, Calif. 94002

Trademarks and registered trademarks belong to their respective holders.

The Power of Graphical Development
In an Exciting New Environment

Over three years of development and testing have
transformed a vision into reality. An ideal develop¬
ment environment created by the perfect harmony
of proven database technology within an exciting
new visual landscape. Information Builders introduces
PM/FOCUS, a graphical development and decision
support system combining unparalleled data access
and reporting with the versatility, stability and power
of OS/2 2.0.

PM/FOCUS offers a rich graphical tool set com¬
plete with File Painter, Forms Painter, and Query
Painter to build even the most complex applications
without writing code. Application components such
as databases, forms, and procedures, become simple
graphic objects that can be manipulated and activated
with a point, click, and drag of your mouse. The
comprehensive array of list boxes, check boxes,
multiple fonts, radio buttons and other graphical

images, offer an intuitive interface that’s remarkably
attractive and easy to use. PM/FOCUS comes with
its own proven database engine. Optional interfaces
let you create sensational GUI applications for most
other popular SQL databases. And PM/FOCUS is
EDA/SQL enabled. This means you can have
access to over 50 relational and non-relational file
types on more than 35 different operating platforms.

PM/FOCUS. It could well be the reason why OS/2
was invented. Call your local Information Builders
branch office or Micro Products Telesales at
1-800-969-INFO. FAX (212) 695-3247.

I TRTpm/focus

Information Builders, Inc

1250 Broadway, New York, NY 10001

Let Gpf write the GDI you design

Gpf

SYSTEMS, INC.

Using the powerful point and click visual programming environment of Gpf*, you can
prototype, test and generate a complete OS/2 PM GUI in a few hours or days rather
than the weeks or months required to hand code the same design. Even a relatively
simple GUI can require writing thousands of lines of code, but with Gpf you simply
draw your user interface on the screen. The integrated dialogue editor of Gpf permits
actions and context sensitive help to be linked to controls as you create them. Gpf then
generates error free ANSI C complete with embedded SQL statements.

Gpf is optimized to take full advantage of OS/2 PM, the most powerful and robust GUI
system available. Since Gpf code directly accesses the PM API, there is no run time
module to distribute with your application and no added overhead or royalties.

Gpf keeps the entire design definition in one file. This means single point mainte¬
nance for easy update and archiving. From this file Gpf generates the C source file
as well as .H, .RC, .IPF, DEF, .IDS, .MAK, etc..

Gpf supports:

• Simple and direct linkage of the interface to program logic, built
in or user defined functions.

• Direct association of help screes with controls, and complete
integration into the PM Help Presentation Facility.

• Flexible use of Presentation objects (fonts, colors, etc.) with
controls and windows (client area and frame).

• Simple inclusion of bitmaps for use on About screens, user-
defined buttons, and menu or pulldown entries.

• Automatic embedded SQL statements to read OS/2 DataBase
Manager tables, directly into combo or list boxes.

• Multi-thread programming.

• Multiple source file generation.

• Automatic creation of controls that scale with window size.

• Inclusion of user defined controls

Try us out.

Order Gpf today for just $995."

Call Gpf Systems Inc. at:

(203) 873-3300 or (800) 831-0017 - fax (203) 873-3302.

Free demo software available

P.O. Box 414, 30 Falls Rd., Moodus, CT 06469

* GUI Programming Facility

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